<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Noose Of Red Threads by FloydOfWar</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130498">The Noose Of Red Threads</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloydOfWar/pseuds/FloydOfWar'>FloydOfWar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Red Threads of Remnant [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood and Violence, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Necromancy, OC Galore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sideplot AU, So so so many OC's, Suicidal Thoughts, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:53:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>324,231</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130498</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloydOfWar/pseuds/FloydOfWar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>With Beacon destroyed and their world torn down, the survivors of the battle are now soldiers in a war they don't know how to begin fighting. As team RNJR prepare to begin their journey in the winter months, team SKTC are finally tasked to accept the daunting truth of what really drives the world of Remnant, let in on a well-kept secret so they can embark on the mission that Ozpin set for them, and find the Spring Maiden.<br/>But each of them are distracted and twisted as the war against the darkness grows more and more bloody, and too many red threads are instead oiled black. By the time they've healed from the Battle Of Beacon and are ready to leave, will they even still trust each other to have their backs when it counts after they abandoned each other on the night they lost everything?</p><p>The second entry in the Red Threads of Remnant series, it continues on in the journeys of teams SKTC and LAVA as they play their part in the fights ahead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Neopolitan/OC, OC/OC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Red Threads of Remnant [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ruined</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Well then, here we go in part two!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With the heat rising into the sky from the several large fires that had been burning throughout the city for the better part of twenty-four hours, combined with the ash and remains of dust swirling in the air, it was only to be expected that the rains began late in the day after the battle. Heavy and filled with sickly ash and dust, it turned the streets to grime, failing to wash away the dry streaks and streams of blood that had slowly been trickling down into the city drains and turning the sewers crimson as it slid down walls thickly and landed below.</p><p>The rain turned heavy, and soon thunderous, with fierce crackling of lightning breaking the sky over the burning ruins of the city of Vale, extinguishing the few fires that remained and turning the air into thick smokey moisture, impossible for the few conscious figures at the fallback camp to safely breathe and forcing even the sturdiest Huntsmen to take refuge inside the large tents that had been established.</p><p>Bodies of those still barely alive on the streets twitched and fatally whimpered under the onslaught of the wind and rain, the icy cold soon finishing what blades, teeth, gunshots and claws had failed to achieve. The only figures who were unperturbed by the polluted weather were the hordes of Grimm that stalked the city streets and rubble, nuzzling through piles of corpses for the few survivors that remained whose pain drew them in for meals, most of whom were bitten and clawed into without the strength to scream any louder than small whimpers and gasps, whether they were students or adults alike.</p><p>The smouldering ruins of the fairgrounds slowly settled, the ash and blood washed into the grass and churning the mud into a sickly grey underneath the bodies of the civilians that had been gunned down at the hands of the Knights, washing clean a true treasure trove for the Grimm who all too willingly stalked into the area to begin to scavenge.</p><p>Not all those who still survived were doomed to be hunted, with those still being unconscious or in shock not expressing the pain and despair that would draw the creatures in, and those that were luckily in cover in no danger of being killed by the icy winds and poisonous rains. A glimmer of hope for a people who would wake wishing for a death that had been denied them, surrounded by the bodies of their friends and comrades, along with the enemies they had cut down in a haze that would eventually lift and torture them.</p><p> </p><p>Inside the outpost tents, the few professors and Huntsmen still fit for the duty of scrounging the ruins for survivors and collecting the bodies of those who could be buried or returned home to their families crowded around maps and small heaters, either completely silent or speaking in low voices barely above whispers. For a city that had housed four million people, barely a dozen huntsmen were currently healthy enough to attempt to clear their home one ruined street at a time. With each comrade that awakened, the work would get faster and easier, but until then it was looking to be a job that would never be finished but had to be attempted nonetheless, if only for the hope.</p><p>But the worry of failure threatened despair, and despair would bring the Grimm towards the medical tents, so even though the city itself called to them many of the Huntsmen remained behind at the camp to guard. It had only been safe to search the city for a day, and while survivors had been found it was the <em> bodies </em>that were piling up without room to put them, and they had been forced to accept a reality where bodies would have to be ignored and left behind.</p><p> </p><p>Bent over the reports and papers in the logistics tent, Professor Goodwitch took her glasses from her face briefly to rest her eyes and tap her fingers on the tabletop. The situation was hopeless, especially with the frozen draconic Grimm still somehow drawing Grimm into the city in hordes, to prowl the streets and race the Huntsmen in the search for survivors. And through sheer numbers and lack of hesitation, it was a race that the Grimm were destined to win.</p><p>The other figures in the tent were silent, as professors Oobleck and Firenei flicked through their own piles of reports and summarised the important numbers on separate papers to be added to the necessary information for planning and scheduling, while Port stood staring into the small fire of the portable heater that had been set up, his hands folded behind his back and an unreadable expression on his face. Logan Goroesi stood at the entrance to the tent staring out into the rain, his eyes in the direction of the Academy tower, narrowed and focused as he looked at the stone dragon through the darkness of the clouds.</p><p> </p><p>“Did she know what she was?”</p><p>Looking up as Logan broke the silence, Glynda made her way over to stand next to him and follow his gaze towards the dragon.</p><p>“The Rose girl?”</p><p>“Yes. The first silver-eyed warrior in...since Summer, right?”</p><p>“We believe there are others out there, reports of similar events, but Ruby Rose is the first that we’ve had in Beacon since her mother, yes.” Glynda nodded sadly, giving a sigh as she looked at what the girl had done.</p><p>“Did she know what it meant? What she was?”</p><p>“No, no I don’t believe so.”</p><p>“Ozpin didn’t tell her. More secrets.” Logan shook his head in grief-filled frustration at the man he had respected but also resented, crossing his arms over his chest.</p><p>“Qrow will tell her.”</p><p>“Too late for it to be any comfort.” His answer was quiet, and he didn’t look at her as he said it, instead keeping his eyes on the statue in the distance.</p><p> </p><p>Humming in agreement, Glynda looked around at the other tents and low torches illuminating the small camp, civilians huddled in the small places of cover that were available until the few ships still providing evacuation returned for the next extraction in a couple of hours. Survivors were finding their way to the camp faster than they could be taken to safety, and supplies were entering dangerously low levels.</p><p>Not just food. But medical supplies.</p><p>More were arriving with each return trip of the airships, but it wasn’t fast enough.</p><p>Too many of the sick and injured were going to die.</p><p> </p><p>Looking out into the rain and ruins, Logan felt a knot clench inside of his stomach as he thought of his son’s teammate still out there. There was no way of knowing whether or not Chrystal was even alive, but he could feel in his gut that she was, she was too tough. But that alone wouldn’t help them find her and bring her home.<br/>
What hurt him even more was the knowledge that despite her personal importance to himself and to his son, she couldn’t take too high of a priority over the lives of others. Not in a situation like this. It was the sort of cold decision that he had wanted to make sure he’d never had to make again. Why he’d retired.</p><p>But there was no time or place for retirement in a catastrophe.</p><p>“We’ll find her.”</p><p>Sighing, he looked over at Glynda, who had seemed to know exactly what he was thinking about. She usually did. Placing her hand on his arm for a few moments, she thinned her lips in as reassuring a smile that could be managed in this sort of place before going back to the table behind her.</p><p>Watching her walk away, Logan looked back up at the tower as lightning blasted across the sky, throwing the profile of the massive stone creature into stark detail to his eyes, followed by a crack of thunder that had him clench his fists.</p><p>He’d never admit it, but right now he wasn’t so sure there’d be many left to rescue at all soon enough.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Every few moments, the otherwise perfect tranquility of the forests of Patch was disrupted by the crack of lightning, sending off small booms of thunder to shake the leaves and send the birds into panic, before tranquility would return for a few moments. Over and over again, without pause or reprieve, always lightning.<br/>
Standing in one of the large yards of the Goroesi estate, Kylar was resting his hands on a wooden table with his eyes closed, deep in thought that he often needed to interrupt by cracking some lightning dust and releasing it in concentrated bolts at a nearby archery target out of frustration at what was going through his mind.</p><p>It was crazy. It was impossible. But he’d seen the evidence of it, and his mother wouldn’t lie to him, not about something so important.</p><p>Magic. The Four Maidens. The brothers and the relics. Ruby’s silver eyes and the dragon.</p><p>It was all just <em> fairy tales. </em></p><p> </p><p>Sending another blast of lightning at the target, he sank down onto a nearby bench and buried his head into his hands, one arm finally wrapped in a cast to help it heal. The injuries he’d sustained at Cinder’s hand, and further smaller ones from the dangerous trip back to the medical outpost, were healing well. Unusually well, which had piqued his curiosity, and upon further study he had discovered that his aura had grown larger.</p><p>Grown through use like a muscle. Or a bone that breaks and grows back stronger.</p><p>Looking at the three separate crates of dust crystals on the large table, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Cinder had called his Semblance a ‘pale imitation’ of a power he couldn’t imagine. Well, now he could imagine it, thanks to his mother, and he refused to allow such a power divide to last. His mother may have said with absolute conviction that the Maidens had a level of power that couldn’t be matched, but that was just a challenge by saying that no-one had yet to manage it.</p><p>It wasn’t the right priority to have straight away, he knew that. But there were too many other questions, and only on the edge of his mind had he admitted to himself that he was scared to ask them, even after he had grilled his mother on all the basics. Despite her alleged transparency, he knew there was still a lot she was keeping from him.</p><p>He supposed he was likely going to have to stay used to that.</p><p>If this was how the world apparently worked, there might not be a choice. But if the past year in Beacon had forced anything into him, it was that the world showed its secrets eventually, even if it doing so meant doing it in such a way that hurt.</p><p>The thought that Ozpin had apparently decided that his team were the perfect candidates for some sort of secret mission did touch on his ego, even though he now felt pangs of grief for the man who would no longer have any sage words of wisdom for him and his friends when they were scared or lost. Which also painfully reinforced to him that this larger more dangerous world was of such a degree that even the powerful and legendary Professor Ozpin had fallen in battle when standing against it, on a day that Kylar wished he would be able to forget.</p><p> </p><p>As his mind fell down that train of thought, a memory flashed into his head of the first moment of the night his lightning had pierced into a man that had lacked an aura, going right through him and charring the ground behind. At the time he’d used his training to block out the implications of it and continued to act, but now that there was nothing but the quiet of the forest and the mental weight of things to come, it played over and over again in his mind on repeat. The second one hadn’t been any easier, in fact considering he had used fire it had been even worse, and was a stench that had briefly been stronger than the other corpses and bloodshed.</p><p>Chrystal had been a vegetarian until the start of their second year at Beacon, having been one ever since she was orphaned in the fire that took her family. While Kylar didn’t now share her fear of fire, the stench of cooking meat had him understanding her dietary choices just a bit more.</p><p>The thought of Chrystal made him feel hollow and terrified for her, but also horrifically guilty. While he hadn’t made the conscious choice to be taken back to Patch, and in fact he had every intention of sneaking back to the mainland to join his father in searching for their lost teammate, he felt guilty for separating from both her and Shina in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>Not to mention that both himself and Tacita had willingly gone to confront Cinder and her cronies without their teammates by their side. And it had ended the way that it did.<br/>
Splitting up had been a mistake. One they’d consciously made.<br/>
And it was rage and arrogance that had led them to do it.</p><p>But next time, he <em> would </em> be a match for Cinder. Just because he was now aware of a whole new level of power that was out there, and a source of it working against the good of the world, didn’t change the fact that he knew the potential limits of his Semblance. Or rather the <em> lack </em>of limits.</p><p>He just had to keep studying.</p><p>To spend the time his teammates were lost and unconscious moping with wounded pride, instead of being determined to improve just a margin, would be an insult to the fact they were lost and hurt because he hadn’t been strong enough.</p><p> </p><p>But he had to be smarter. That was the only way he was getting out of all of this alive, even if only slightly intact.</p><p>Losing to Cinder so horrifically had made it clear to him that brute power wasn’t going to work anymore, not like it had against Grimm and other people up until that point.</p><p>And if they <em> were </em>going to go on their mission that had been tasked to them by Ozpin without their knowledge, he had to be smart enough to handle it. Shina was the strong one, it was why he was their team leader, Chrystal was adaptive, and Tacita was intuitive.</p><p>But <em> he </em> had to be <em> smarter </em>.</p><p> </p><p>Standing and making his way over to the table again, he tossed up a lightning crystal into his hand and a fire crystal into his left and drained them both, drawing it into himself and feeling it wrap around his aura. Slowly walking to a clear spot in the courtyard and sinking down onto it, crossing his legs, he closed his eyes and concentrated to study specifically how the energy itself touched his aura. Where it travelled, what it focused on, how it made him feel both individually and also the specific feelings of the two dusts together.<br/>
With how his mood was, fire dust was easy for him to manipulate, touching onto his anger and his frustration, his desire to take action, and latched onto it. Meanwhile the lightning dust touched his impulses, his determination, and pushed it into overdrive. Together they merged into and touched onto the part of him that was determined to take action and do what had to be done, no matter what, and who wanted to start immediately.</p><p>Standing again carefully, making sure not to disrupt the energy inside of himself, he scooped up a water crystal and drained it into himself, before sinking down to meditate again now that he had a third added to the mix. The water dust tickled and wrapped around his steadfast patience, his conviction that given enough time he would always triumph.</p><p>Piece by piece he added more dust, knowing he was pushing his limits when he had added all except for gravity and hardlight into the mix. Sinking down into a meditation and focusing on his aura, he studied the dust swimming along it, moving through his mind and his spirit, and what they wanted from him. Cinder’s ‘magic’ was limitless, fuelled by something larger than dust and Semblances, and so to potentially match it in the future Kylar had to evolve his semblance far past the point other people traditionally did.</p><p>It would take scrutiny, and effort.</p><p>And time.</p><p> </p><p>But he didn’t have a shortage of that at the moment, considering Chrystal was still missing and neither of his other teammates had woken up. For now he was alone, so the burden of improving as much as possible as quickly as possible was on him for now.</p><p>Just two hours ago in the pre-dawn hours he’d been arguing with his mother in the largest parlor, his entire world changing, and now he was out in the yard determined to match a power out of legend. But his father had said that his Semblance could change the way dust was understood, forever. And Kylar was determined to be able to decide exactly <em> how </em> it was going to change things.<br/>
With the dust all swimming inside of him, covering almost every layer of his mind and his spirit, he cautiously stood and grabbed a gravity crystal before draining it and adding it to the mix, deliberately leaving hardlight alone until he had more focus.</p><p>Now with almost every type of dust inside of himself, dormant until he tried to use it, he took a deep breath and walked into the center of the courtyard before facing the archery target he’d been punishing and gradually destroying.</p><p>Closing his eyes and concentrating on what was inside of himself, piece by piece, he began to structure them together. A potential mistake was that he always attempted to use the energy inside of himself at once, in one combination, which was often an effort that broke his focus and shattered his aura. It was those sorts of massive moves that had served him well his entire Huntsman career up until the Breach. But after that point it had only let him down, even during the team match of the tournament, and especially against Cinder. Throwing everything you had at someone was all well and good, but only if you were stronger than them in that moment. And if his mother was right in what she had stressed, he would <em> never </em>match a Maiden in terms of pure strength and capability. It wasn’t a thought he enjoyed.</p><p>It also wasn’t one he was willing to truly accept down to his core.</p><p> </p><p>So for now brute strength was out, but there were other options. He may not ever be as strong as Cinder, but he was damn sure he was smarter and more finessed. So if he could practice how to release it all in a concentrated sequence, it would lighten the burden on his aura and allow him to use more types of dust in one go, except in a combination and not a concentration.<br/>
It would require a level of patience he’d never liked using for his Semblance, not whilever he had known that he was able to solve problems purely through his normal method. But now his typical method wasn’t just useless, but it was dangerous to use, threatening his life and the lives of his comrades.<br/>
The time of raw power was done, since he was no longer the most powerful player.</p><p>But he was able to be the smartest, if he took the time to be.</p><p> </p><p>Cinder’s fire had outmatched his own, and now thanks to his mother’s explanations he had a decent understanding of <em> why </em> . And apparently she had access to ice as well, according to his mother. But his lightning <em> had </em> gotten through and damaged her, likely an element related to one of the other Maidens, due to the change in seasons. Either Spring or Summer.<br/>
So clearly the powers of each Maiden were limited to certain elements and capabilities, but what they <em> could </em>do they could do as much as they wanted, which meant Kylar had a set amount of time to devise a counter to Cinder’s currently very specific ability set before she absorbed another Maiden and the rules changed again.</p><p>Fire and Ice, with touches of Air. That was what he was dealing with.</p><p> </p><p>Focusing on where the target was in his mind’s eye, he began to attempt to establish a sequence that he had in mind, planning it out for one after the other in quick succession. Knowing where the target was, he raised his hands and brought out earth dust to create a series of spears, releasing them immediately at the target before infusing the spears in ice as they flew, the spears penetrating the target and splintering to reveal their icy interiors, just in time for a concentrated bolt of lightning to crack into the barely frozen liquid and travel through the current, detonating upon enhanced impact with the entire target with a thunder crack that shattered the stone spears and sent shards everywhere that had Kylar bring together gravity and clench his fist, drawing the broken shards, still sharp, into the target with enough force the archery target practically disintegrated into splinters and scraps of wood.</p><p>The remaining signs of his bindings turned to dust again and blew away the moment his aura infused into them ran out, and he narrowed his eyes in thought as he looked at the results of the experiment, before closing his eyes and studying his aura, noticing that the drain hadn’t been particularly large, due to it being processed as smaller individual manipulations instead of one large one. Humming in satisfaction, he brought together the fire and air dust still in his system and released a blast of swirling flame at the next target, turning it into ash as he vented the last dust in his aura and returned to his normal self.</p><p>Deflating, he sank back down onto the bench and rested with his head back against the wall of the workshop where he’d likely be spending the better part of a fortnight rebuilding his staff, though he intended on making some alterations, drawing blueprints inside of his mind. The moment his staff had shattered he hadn’t felt so helpless in years, and that sat like rotten meat inside of his gut.</p><p>So modifications had to be made to prevent that from happening again. Likely finding a way to make it heatproof. And apparently coldproof as well.</p><p>This was going to be impossible to explain to the other three once they were all back and awake. But it would be with both of his parents, which could make it a <em> bit </em>easier if he could continue to pull the truth out of them. And pulling the answers to the dozens of questions he’d had for her about the situation had been like pulling teeth.</p><p>His father wasn’t much better.</p><p> </p><p>Just that sequence had drained his aura greatly, but not as much as it would have if he’d tried it all in one go. It had also taken more time, but he’d be able to shorten that time with practice, just like he’d be able to shorten how much aura it drained as he finessed the amount of aura needed for each individual step of a sequence. But using so many dusts in a sequence was foolish for now, he wouldn’t learn about any of them if he always used all of them. So for now he’d start off with two. Then three. And working his way up.</p><p>Patience.</p><p>Not his strong suit. And if his father’s theory was right, a theory that had taken Kylar too long to figure out, then it meant that his trouble using earth dust was <em> proof </em>of his impatience.</p><p>That sort of spiritual and philosophical garbage had been something he’d dismissed all of his life, ignoring those sorts of explanations and studies in exchange for hard chemistry facts.</p><p>But apparently that was how the world actually worked, and his mother might have been trying to prepare him for it by always buying him those books.</p><p>Sighing, he realised he might just have a lot of reading in the family library to do.</p><p> </p><p>Standing, he closed the dust boxes and carried them one by one back to the large workshop, placing them in the supply room with the others, the family never having any shortage of dust for him and his brother to use. Despite his parents being retired from being huntsmen, they kept a large variety of tools and supplies, and he suspected that in the coming weeks of preparation that was going to be a godsend. Each of them would need to modify and alter their styles and preferences for what was coming, now that they knew what they might all be up against.</p><p>But for now all the basic supplies and tools were reminders of a simpler time, one without the sort of complications that Kylar found himself faced with. The last time he had truly used anything in this workshop had been making the final alterations to the design of his staff before leaving for Beacon, and those alterations had purely been to make it fancier to look at. What a waste. </p><p>Closing his eyes and resting against one of the workbenches for a moment, he shook his head as the thoughts swam through his mind one by one. With the Fall Maiden out of commission, Ozpin had been wanting to ask them to find the Spring Maiden?</p><p>Why them? And where were they even meant to start?</p><p> </p><p>They had her name, Rowena, and the name of the town that Rowena grew up in and had stationed herself in until her disappearance, Ywitawa, in the wilds of Mistral of all places, which was <em> weeks </em> of foot travel away, if not <em> months </em> due to increased Grimm activity on the mainland. And that was how they were going to have to do it, <em> if </em>the others agreed to go on the mission. But he wouldn’t be surprised if they said no and instead wanted to return to Beacon to assist in the rebuilding efforts.</p><p>Not even <em> he </em>was sure what he wanted to do. He believed his mother, she wouldn’t make up lies about something like this, and he had always known that something had been different about the stories his parents had hesitantly told him about their days as Huntsmen. But he hadn’t pried, he hadn’t paid enough attention to.</p><p>There had been more important things on his mind;</p><p>Himself.</p><p> </p><p>Standing up from his slouch, he stepped outside and closed the workshop door behind him, blinking a few times as there was another wave of bright colour in his vision again. It had first happened waking up after the breach, but it had only been the case for a few hours before fading, yet since waking up a couple of hours ago it had been happening every ten to fifteen minutes. It was triggered by something, he just wasn’t sure what.</p><p>Opening his eyes in a squint, he winced at the bright colours around him, seemingly infused into most surfaces and things. It was distracting, and strangely transfixing, whenever he paid more than the minimum amount of attention to anything. Looking across at the ornate steel decor of the gate between the back courtyard and the rest of the grounds, he tilted his head in transfixed curiosity as he walked over and studied the intense silver of the metal, almost seeming to shimmer and glow as he watched.</p><p>Giving into an impulse that he had resisted so far, he reached out with a hand and placed it onto the metal, feeling it cold underneath his touch but also strangely electric, as if he was touching a current inside of it. Closing his eyes, he studied how it felt, every bit of it, and startled in surprise when he felt that it was interacting with his aura. Opening his eyes again, he frowned and twisted his aura around the metal, the same way he twisted his aura around the dust energy to shape it with his Semblance.</p><p>And it shimmered, the surface rippling as his aura touched it. Blinking, he took his hand from the metal and stared at it curiously, his gaze flicking from his hand to the gate and back again as he frowned in thought. The metal still glowed in his vision, but he could swear that the place he had touched it was glowing slightly brighter.</p><p>What was going on here?</p><p>Looking at the different things that were glowing, from barrels, to the stone of the courtyard, to the shimmering water of a nearby fountain, he straightened up and frowned in composed curiosity as he glanced around, noting what sort of things in particular were shimmering, and which were not.</p><p>Water, wood, stone, glass, and the outside spotlight that he’d turned on to illuminate the courtyard in the early-dawn shadows.</p><p>Frowning deeper, he catalogued.</p><p>He suddenly had a <em> lot </em>of experiments to do, a new puzzle laid out before him.</p><p>Step by step, he would achieve his goal.</p><p> </p><p>Smarter, not stronger.<br/>
And as he set out on his mission, whenever and whatever that might be, the next time he encountered the power that Cinder had been so proud and confident about...he’d be ready. He’d have to be. While his pride had certainly been damaged by his loss, she had also challenged it, calling what he could do a ‘pale imitation.’</p><p>You don’t just throw a challenge like that down and <em> not </em> expect it to be taken up and eventually beaten. But it would take time, and study, and a lot of effort and patience</p><p>Step by step.</p><p>Unbeknownst to him, underneath his feet, the stone of the courtyard rippled.</p><p> </p><p>Closing his eyes to sigh for a moment, when he opened them the shimmering colours had gone away, and he thinned his lips in thought as he made his way inside to the library.<br/>
He had a lot of reading to get started on.</p><p>And once the others had woken up, and Chrystal had returned, it might be a good idea to go and visit Yang and Ruby.</p><p>After all, the pair had lost just as much as they had.</p><p>If not more.</p><p>They were all in this together now. They had to be.<br/>
Because they no longer had anyone else.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal’s eyes flicked open the moment her alarm started, and she was already rolling out of bed as she turned it off and laid her scroll flat onto her bedside table. Despite how dark it was in the pre-dawn hours she had her dorm memorised, so it wasn’t hard to get dressed in complete darkness. Pulling on her boots silently, she buckled them up with her eyes closed as she thought over her situation.</p><p>It had been a long night of restless sleep, and she was still sore and exhausted, but she didn’t have any other choice but to get moving and push through. Get to the top of the gunship stern for a perfect view of the city and outskirts, locate the inevitable resistance outpost, head there, and find a way to get back to the others, with optimistically them still being there at the outpost itself.</p><p>But that was a longshot.</p><p> </p><p>Quickly having a basic but fuelling breakfast before strapping on her harness and attaching her bag to it so she could still reach her weapons unimpeded, figuring out that particular attachment had been an incredible pain, and even now her travel bag wasn’t particularly large. But it would do for her trip, she had no other choice. Pausing before she left, she gave one last look over the dorm, and her eyes softened as she glanced around.<br/>
Biting the inside of her lips to stifle her sadness, she instead let it out as a shaking breath as she put her hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. Knowing it was the last time she’d ever step foot in what had been her favourite home she’d ever had was hard, and she briefly rested her forehead against the door and closed her eyes to take it in, letting her mind wander and show her some memories, but she put the steel wall over her emotions and left, still locking the door behind her out of habit as she left even though there was no need to.</p><p>Wriggling her way out of a nearby broken window, she leapt to the roof of the nearest building and began her journey through the ruins of the city, using the collapsed communications tower on her right and Beacon Tower on her left as directional markers until the sun rose, to make sure she was going in the right direction until the gunship itself would eventually come into view. Wincing in disgust at the filthy rain dropping from the sky in torrents, she pulled her hood up over her face to keep it out of her eyes, and off her face so that her breathing was uninterrupted, before continuing on her way, trusting her Semblance to prevent her from slipping or skidding on the slick and grimy streets and rooftops.</p><p>Keeping low and sliding through the right ruins and slits through fiercely trained instinct and discipline, it was relatively easy to travel through the ruins of the city when it came to agility, but it was the need for slow speed and the complicated labyrinth that the city had become due to the rubble and countless hordes of Grimm.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, she kept moving, and the dawn hours began to pass easily enough, reaching the residential areas of the city before the rain stopped and the sun had truly broken the horizon, yet the sky was still a glowing grey, the rays coming from just under the horizon having to compete with the smokey storm still in the sky. But Chrystal was capable of navigating in complete darkness if she had to, so even the low grey light was a godsend that helped her trip, managing to travel the dawn hours without having to fight a single Grimm.</p><p>The soreness in her joints in muscles gradually vanished as her body warmed up from the exertion and her aura finished the healing, and eventually the endorphins and energy from the exercise began to soak into her and she found it even easier to speed up, swinging up onto the roof of one of the apartment blocks only to pause and blink at what she saw two blocks over, another figure hoping from rooftop to rooftop with grace.</p><p>Drawing a pistol as she watched, squinting her eyes to try and catch a clearer view of who it was, she blinked and immediately holstered her weapon again upon making out the form of Blake Belladonna on the run.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, she began to pursue the girl, and despite the other girl’s own agility Chrystal was easily catching up, eventually landing gracefully on the same roof that Blake had just jumped onto, and Chrystal gave out a low whistle. Blake’s hand immediately went to her weapon until she spotted it was her, and she immediately relaxed and paused as Chrystal made her way over while glancing around them to see if they were in any danger.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Blake’s voice was sharp and paranoid, and Chrystal caught as Blake took in the new horrific scar on her face and her eyes widened for the slightest moment before she smothered it. “What <em> happened </em>to you?”</p><p>“I got separated from my team and knocked out, so I’m trying to get back. What about you? Where are the others?”</p><p>“I…” Blake hesitated, looking away for a brief moment. “They’re safe. They got evacuated.”</p><p>“...so why are <em> you </em>still here?” Chrystal tilted her head, stepping closer and leaning in gently in concern.</p><p> </p><p>Shaking her head in an attempt to dismiss the topic, Blake bit the inside of her cheek and avoided eye contact. “Had to stay behind. There are just some things I need to take care of.”</p><p>“Oh. Right. Uhh...anything you need help with? I might be the only person left in the city who can keep up with you.” Chrystal raised her eyebrow with a despairing and dark grin, before letting out a sigh when Blake immediately shook her head.</p><p>“I’m okay. Thanks. But you should get to safety, I’m sure your team is worried.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding hesitantly, Chrystal put her hand on Blake’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, giving her a reassuring and loyal look. “Be safe.”</p><p>“You too. And...I’m sorry. About…” Blake hesitated, before gesturing to her face and giving Chrystal a sympathetic look.</p><p>“It’s that bad huh?”</p><p>“No! No. Just...noticeable.” Blake winced at her wording, but let out a small sigh of relief when Chrystal snorted instead of being angry or insulted.</p><p>“Yeah well, I intend on giving that Adam guy worse if I ever see the prick again.”</p><p> </p><p>Freezing, Blake gasped and took a scared step back, her eyes widening and her voice dropping into a timid and guilty whisper. “<em> Adam </em> did that to you?”</p><p>“Yep, dick, but he wasn’t in great shape so here’s hoping he’s sore and scarred too.” Chrystal shrugged, before frowning when a severely guilty and scared look came over Blake’s face.</p><p>“Chrystal, I...I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Blake choked up and put a hand to her mouth, looking away for a few moments before looking back to her. “I never…”</p><p>“Hey, hey hey.” Chrystal stepped forward to close the distance again, and put her hands on Blake’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault.”</p><p>“Yes it <em> is </em> . He did it because you’re <em> my friend </em>. He’s coming after...all of you. If someone is close to me…” Blake flinched and shook her head, trying to pull out of Chrystal’s grip but the other girl just pulled her into a confused but tight hug. Struggling for a few moments out of guilt, Blake’s eyes eventually closed and she hugged back.</p><p> </p><p>“I have to get away from everyone. He’ll follow <em> me </em>. And everyone will be safe, just until he can be dealt with.” Blake whispered, stepping back out of Chrystal’s embrace and shaking her head with her eyes closed. “If he’s still around, you have to run, otherwise he’ll hunt you just for being my friend. Just for being someone I care about.”</p><p>“Well I’m certainly not <em> walking </em> my way out of here <em> casually </em>. Don’t worry, I’m in just as much of a hurry to get out of this place as you might want me to be.” Chrystal gave a dry smirk, and was relieved when the corner’s of Blake’s mouth twitched in relief.</p><p>“You’re not trying to stop me?”</p><p>Hesitating, Chrystal put her hands into her pockets before shaking her head slowly. “...I trust you, Blake, so I trust your decision I guess. And I’m sure your team did as well.”</p><p>“I…” Blake flinched, looking away for a brief moment as an intense flash of guilt went through her face that she couldn’t hide. “Right.”</p><p>Staring at her for a few moments with a blank expression, Chrystal didn’t even pretend to give it the inflection of a question. “You didn’t tell them.”</p><p>“...N-no.”</p><p>“You just left.”</p><p>Silent, Blake stepped back, almost as if she was afraid, before nodding and looking down at the ground. Chrystal didn’t reply straight away, merely staring at her and scrutinising her with a more cynical gaze than she would have before.</p><p>Taking in a small breath for a few moments and holding it, Chrystal twitched.</p><p> </p><p>“Coward.”</p><p> </p><p>“...I..I know.” Blake’s voice was a pained whisper as she let it out, closing her eyes. “But I have to. It’s the only way.”</p><p>“Yeah…” Nodding slowly, Chrystal sucked in another breath as she bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes flickering narrow for only a moment. She wanted to say more, but she wasn’t sure how much of it Blake would deserve and how much of it would just be her own feelings venting themselves. So she bit it all back and merely sighed with as hidden a scoff as she could manage. “Go on then. I’ve got to get back to my team.”</p><p>Silent and unmoving for a few moments, Blake crossed an arm over herself to grip her other forearm, creating a wall, before she slowly nodded in a resigned defeat, the hatred of disappointing yet another person. What she had wordlessly fled in order to avoid, she hadn’t managed to escape in truth. All she could do for a moment before she could convince her legs to move, was nod and whisper.</p><p>“Be safe, Chrystal.”</p><p>“You too Blake. You better come back…” Chrystal breathed it out, stopping it from becoming a hiss, before her expression softened and she turned away to continue her own run. “I hope we all see each other again.”</p><p> </p><p>“Me too.” Blake nodded, heading to skip over to another roof before pausing and speaking over her shoulder, wanting to hide her face. “Hey Chrystal?”</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>“...that night you took Yang and I to that club?...Thanks. I knew what you were doing, and...it meant a lot.”</p><p>“You’re not angry?” Chrystal paused in her walk and adjusted her harness out of nervousness, a guilty frown appearing on her face. She didn’t like manipulating people, but sometimes they needed the right push.</p><p>“No. At the time I felt as if I <em> should </em>have been. But you gave me something...special. You’ve been a good friend, Chrystal. And you didn’t have to be.”</p><p>“You too, Blake. Sorry we didn’t talk more.”</p><p>“I think that’s more on <em> me </em>than it’s on you.” Blake gave a dry chuckle, still not turning around, and she hesitated one last time, her voice timid. “Kylar’s place is on Patch, right?”</p><p>“Yeah. Safe bet is that’s where we’ll be going.”</p><p>“Can you do me a favour? Check in on...Yang, from time to time.”</p><p> </p><p>The voice Blake asked it with was so painfully timid and guilty that Chrystal wasn’t sure how to respond in a way that would be reassuring or convincing enough, and she had to bite back every sharper comment she wanted to make, so she simply took a deep breath that she let out slowly, and she gave a nod to Blake’s back.</p><p>“I promise.”</p><p>“...thanks. Be safe Chrystal.”</p><p>“You too.”</p><p>With that, Blake hopped to the next roof, heading in a different direction Chrystal was heading, and the girl watched her go over her shoulder for a few moments before sighing and continuing on her own way, her mind buzzing in confusion at her friend as she grabbed the window frame of the next apartment block and swung into a third floor apartment to head her way through, easily kicking the door down to keep going. Despite not knowing the girl very well, Chrystal <em> liked </em>Blake. She was cool.</p><p>And now she was scared. She was <em> running </em>.</p><p>But it wasn’t Chrystal’s place to stop her. Not really.</p><p>No matter how much she wanted to.</p><p> </p><p>So putting it into the back of her mind, Chrystal simply hopped out the right window and dropped to the ground, having to head along the streets themselves for the next few blocks due to the damage to the nearby buildings by what had clearly been some sort of improvised explosives, levelling plenty of them. Sighing sadly, she drew a blade as she began to head through Grimm territory, able to avoid them to the best of her ability, and even when forced to engage she was able to deal with them relatively silently.</p><p>Heading down one of the side alleys of what had been a basic and cute little commercial district of family owned shops, she heard the sound of groaning and rustling coming from one of the shops and immediately changed course, hopping in through the broken window to search for the source.</p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>She got a groan in response coming from the back storeroom, and she cautiously headed her way there with her blade out and stepped in, quickly glancing around the shelves and stacks of the room. The source of the groaning was curled up against one of the walls, propped up against it with a hand covering a wound in his pelvis, clearly stopping him from being able to walk on his own.</p><p>And he was White Fang.</p><p>Pausing as she looked at him and took in the uniform, and the nearby mask, Chrystal felt something inside of herself start to cool and freeze over, and she kicked the storeroom door closed behind her as she stepped further in.</p><p>“Oh thank gods, please, I can’t walk.” The man groaned, apparently still conscious enough to be aware and talkative as his eyes opened properly and he gave her a pleading look.</p><p>“Grimm attack?” Her voice was quiet and blank as she crouched down in front of him.</p><p>“Damn thing came out of nowhere and got a good hit in before I dusted it.”</p><p>Nodding in understanding, Chrystal reached forward and moved his hand from the injury he was covering, frowning at the wound and nodding. “You’ll live, once it heals over.”</p><p>“Some good news at least.” He coughed out a laugh, giving a relieved nod.</p><p> </p><p>Not replying for a few moments, Chrystal glanced him over and narrowed her eyes. He was in his mid-thirties, rather well built, and had rather kind eyes and an easy smile that would have been quite charming in any other situation.</p><p>Something in her was slowly turning into ice as she looked at him. Dark ice. And it was starting to spread.</p><p>“Why’d you come here?”</p><p>“Huh?” The man groaned as he tilted his head at her in confusion.</p><p>“Vale. Did you kill anyone during the battle?”</p><p>“What are-”</p><p>“I did. A lot.” Chrystal cut him off, making sure to keep her stare locked on his. “I’ll never forget the first one, but the others...it was a <em> long </em>night, wasn’t it?”</p><p>The man didn’t answer, simply staring at the cold expression on her face as she gave an empty and dead chuckle and shook her head. She looked back at him. “But tell me. Why’d you come?”</p><p>“I…” The man winced, a small flicker of flame appearing in his gaze as he stared at her. “My little sister managed to get a job as a shift supervisor in a motel. Rare for a faunus, but the guy who owned the place was a good sort. One night, two of his guests were not. They…” The man flinched and looked away. “The owner called the cops, but it was the word of a faunus against two humans. Even when the owner vouched for her. Nothing came of it, it wasn’t even acknowledged. So she...she…”</p><p>Nodding in understanding before he finished the sentence, Chrystal sucked in a slow breath through her teeth. “..I’m sorry. I can’t imagine.”</p><p>“Of course you can’t. That’s the <em> point. </em>And that’s why I came here. Why most of us did. Because things have to change. And we needed to make you all listen. I think it’s safe to say you’ve heard us.”</p><p>Looking at each other quietly for a few moments, the heat that had returned to the man’s eyes faded as the pain sapped it dry, but the ice never left Chrystal’s as she spoke quietly once the man had weakened again.</p><p>“But what about my other question?”</p><p>“...huh?”</p><p>“Did you kill anyone here?”</p><p>The man looked at her for a long moment, finally seeming to take in her attire and the weapons on her back, and it seemed to click in his mind just what she was. His eyes hardened, but there was a small glimmer of desperation tied in with the righteous anger.</p><p>“...<em> you’re </em> going to judge me? You? A Huntsman?”</p><p>“No...No point, I guess.” Chrystal stood with a cold look, her eyes like black ice as she took a completely relaxed and detached posture. “In truth, I don’t think it matters much to me either way. It <em> should </em> . I know it should. But right now...I guess we’re <em> all </em>going to betray ourselves for a little bit now. Right now, I wish it was a coward I had hidden inside me too. But...”</p><p> </p><p>Without another word, in one smooth motion she drew her pistol and put a bullet into his forehead, the wall behind him splattering red as he slumped, sliding onto his side with a thump as she simply looked at him. Her pistol still aimed at him for a few moments without a twitch or shake in her hand until she lowered it slowly, the ice in her blood and mind dead and grey as she looked down at him. Holstering her pistol again, she coldly turned and made her way back out onto the streets, continuing on her way without a second thought as she leapt up onto the remaining rooftops and began to easily leap from one to another, skipping over entire streets in the way she was designed for. In only a few minutes, the ice finally left her mind and she was able to clearly think about what she just did.</p><p>Faltering in her step, she landed on a rooftop and stopped for a moment, slowly straightening from her crouch and looking off across the skyline of the city around her as she thought to herself, running over it in her mind.</p><p>Closing her eyes, she felt the threat of bile in her stomach churn as the slightest ebb of guilt went through her mind, but she squashed it down. It wasn’t going to be the last time she’d do it before she got home. It would be naive to think so.</p><p> </p><p>And if she kept being as naive as she had been before all this began, she’d never get out of these ruins alive.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Ambitions Of A Graveyard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Cypher is forced to select her mission over her happiness and make a choice she can't take back while Chrystal begins her climb towards where she hopes to see the way home, the two of them tricked by circumstance to believe the other is dead when in truth they're agonisingly close. Meanwhile Delilah begins her work, forced to accept the new reality that she chose.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Hidden behind a wall in the second story of one of the few buildings still tall enough to overlook the outpost nearby, Cypher stuck her head around just enough that she could see the figures moving around between the tents, as well as those inside the logistics tent itself, which she was particularly keeping an eye on. As the rain that had begun last night finally started to wane off, the camp was taking the opportunity to change shifts and begin yet another day of searching the city for any survivors, going street by street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But from how few fighters who looked to be in decent condition, including a few students she recognised, Cypher could tell that it would be a fruitless effort. The most use it would be was the opening it would buy her to check on what she needed to. As the professors who had been loitering within the logistics tent each headed out, some of them to bed and some of them to work, she bounced on her heels and took a series of breaths for what she’d have to do incredibly quickly in the small opening given to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as the last person left the tent, even if only for a brief window, she silently blinked from where she was hiding to inside, immediately ducking behind the canvas just in case someone would pass by at exactly the wrong moment. Satisfied when no-one spoke up, she quickly and stealthily made her way to the logistics papers and began to flit through them until she’d find what she was looking for. While plenty of the White Fang had escaped, plenty of smaller parties had been spotted heading in specific directions, including a group fleeing in the exact direction she was soon going to be heading towards anyway. There were a handful of towns in that direction, ones that she knew well, so finding a bunch of criminals licking their wounds wouldn’t be too hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if she asked nicely, surely they’d either have answers for her, or would be able to point her in the right direction of whoever </span>
  <em>
    <span>might.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Memorising the information as quickly as possible, she slid the reports where she found them before scrounging around in all the papers until she found the reports from the night of the battle itself, regularly updated by the Huntsmen scouring the city.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Snatching up the casualty lists and status reports, finding the most recent ones, she scanned down until she found her team, and let out a strained breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While Lelise and Ursa had clearly been found and were reported as deceased, both herself and Delilah were still ‘MIA’ and presumed dead. Biting her bottom lip for a few moments, she quickly looked around the desk and snatched up a pen, only pausing when it was hovering above the paper and her brain caught up with what she was doing. It was the sort of thing it would be hard to come back from, but if Delilah had managed to hide in plain sight for so long it wouldn’t surprise Cypher in the slightest if other traitors and spies were still in their midst.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right now, she had a distinct advantage over them. But embracing it would require giving up what she had spilled blood for. What her friends had died for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Delilah was still out there. And she was powerful, more powerful than anyone else could realise, especially since they clearly didn’t even know she’d turned traitor. And where Delilah was, would also be wherever the true string-pullers of what happened could be found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Closing her eyes for a moment to take and let out a silent breath, she put pen to paper and changed her status from missing to deceased, not letting herself pause to rethink her decision before she indulged herself and flipped through the status lists further, checking in on everyone she knew, looking for one team in particular. </span>
  <span>Scanning through until she found the S teams, mouthing the names to herself as she read through them, her breath caught in her throat when she found them. Shina, Kylar, and Tacita had all been evacuated, despite being grievously wounded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Chrystal was missing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Closing her eyes in a blade of agonised defeat as she read it, Cypher put the papers back down on the table and bit her lip despite knowing that she cried just as silently as she did everything else. But she couldn’t afford the luxury, instead immediately having to snap to attention at the sound of approaching footsteps and the voice of Professor Goodwitch, and with barely a thought she silently vanished from the tent and reappeared in the building she had initially been hiding in. </span>
  <span>Peering out the window again, she regarded her teachers with sad eyes for a few moments, guilt swimming underneath the surface of what she was thinking. Delilah had done this, and had been able to do it due to Cypher’s failures. As a team leader, and as a Huntress. And her friends, school, city, and country, had all paid for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A hand dropping to her weapon on her belt, she stroked her fingers along the metal softly, finding a grounding peace in the cool smoothness of the metal, before mouthing a silent but vulnerable apology to the teachers who couldn’t see her. Who she had failed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Turning and hopping down out of the window, she turned in the right direction and began to blink across city blocks at a rapid pace, barely in one spot long enough to be visible, and in only a few minutes she was in the trees, with the city vanishing behind her as she travelled. It had been a little while since she’d last walked the particular roads she’d found herself on, but the </span>
  <em>
    <span>first </span>
  </em>
  <span>time had only been over a year ago when she had arrived at Beacon to take the entrance exam, with only a small bag of basic belongings over her shoulder. But she remembered the way, and while she stopped blinking she did maintain a jog, a pace she’d be able to maintain almost the entire day.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Despite having a Semblance that allowed her to teleport, she had refused to neglect her physical conditioning, and had by far been the most dextrous of her team, with easily the most stamina. So it served her well as she quickly jogged towards her destination, and only a few hours later the first small town came into view.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Snatching some food for her first meal since before the battle was easy enough with her silence and her Semblance, and she ate as quickly as she could as she poked around, keeping her hood up in order to hide her easily identifiable pink hair. The people of the town were scared, and Grimm attacks on the outskirts had frightened the people into retreating into the town itself, which Cypher knew would only serve to make them a more scrumptious target for any Grimm pack that were particularly aggressive. With all available Huntsmen having been recalled to the city itself during the battle, many of which now dead, the smaller towns had no one except their basic guards to protect them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pausing as she overheard more and more muffled and worried conversation while she finished her stolen breakfast, finishing the bottle of water she’d stolen from the small convenience store, she scrunched the plastic up in her hands silently and closed her eyes in acceptance. If the town was still standing, it meant that the nearby Grimm pack that had them scared wasn’t particularly large, but also wouldn’t be particularly hard to find.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As long as she wasn’t seen and her identity remained hidden, she could likely get away with dealing with them before continuing on her way, since clearly none of her targets were in this town in particular. They’d likely end up in one of the larger ones, with more places to hide. In fact she had a faint sick hunch about exactly which large town they’d go to first if they wanted a place to lay low, and she suspected that she’d unconsciously known all along, given the direction she was already heading in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tossing the remains of her breakfast to the side, she blinked away from the alley she’d been hiding in and appeared on the outskirts of the village. Hunting down nearby Grimm was easy enough, even without asking for local information, and she knew the local clearings and small caves well enough to be able to poke through them one by one until she got lucky. Sure enough, less than half an hour later she was pulling her chakram from the chest of the last beowulf of the pack, and spinning the weapon back onto her belt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking around at the still lingering black dust silently as it blew away, she gave a sad smile of satisfaction at the work. It would be one of the last times she’d be able to do her job safely, with no chance of being discovered or revealing herself. The larger towns would make a word out of packs of Grimm vanishing, and it would cause rumors of a Huntsman being in the area, which would cause nothing but problems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she’d just have to hope that the larger towns had decent guards who could handle the problem themselves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For today at least, with the local villages all being around the same size, she could get away with being just another Huntsman for a little while longer. Heading back to the road, she continued on her jog, the flashes of memory that were guiding the way and reminding her of the local area always accompanied by the face and sound of who she’d been there with, as Chrystal had either shot through the treetops up ahead, as she always preferred to do, or the two of them had walked together for hours on their days off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pausing in her jog, slowing down to a gradual stop and looking up at the treetops ahead, Cypher closed her eyes and let her hands hang by her sides as she gave herself just a few moments to bask in the sparks of memory. If she let herself begin to grieve </span>
  <em>
    <span>now, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she’d stop moving entirely, and she needed to keep moving as much as possible with so much ground to cover. Once she was curled up in bed tonight, and she had a suspicion just where she’d be sleeping, she’d let herself think about Chrystal and her teammates. But only once she was safe and it wouldn’t distract her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So her eyes clicked open and she kept moving, eventually deciding to stop putting it off under the excuse that it was best to check the smaller towns as well, and she instead set her course directly for the largest settlement in this direction from Vale, one she knew like the back of her hand and where she knew she’d find the people she was looking for;</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Istburn.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Home.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Looking up at the towering crashed ship above her, Chrystal let out a slow breath in preparation as she reached back and tightened the straps of her harness, holstering her pistol and sheathing her blade before shaking out her hands. The ship had crashed at an angle, driving into the earth and the heavy metal crunching under its own weight and momentum, leaving a massive burning bent wreck sticking out of the earth that had levelled entire buildings upon impact. At its full height, it was easily as tall as Beacon Tower, so the view it potentially offered was life saving. And with the sun finally breaking through the clouds now that the rain had stopped then it was the perfect time to start her climb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Checking the leather of her gloves, she hopped up onto the wrangled metal, finding hand and footholds in the dents and holes. Scrambling up the side, she surpassed the height of a four story building before she was able to slip inside of a crack in the hull to climb up the ship from the inside. With the generators clearly dead, it was pitch black inside, but Chrystal’s eyes easily pierced the darkness as she navigated, having always been able to see in the dark. Squeezing through bent and broken doors and hopping over destroyed railings and machinery, it was slow going, especially once she got to the bodies that began to block the path, often mangled and in pieces due to the crash.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Combined with the fires that had been burning inside at the time of the crash, the stench was horrific, but it was one that Chrystal remembered and was able to block out, having been one that visited her during her episodes far too often. Grunting in effort as she slid through the final hatch of the bottom level of the ship, she looked up the stairwell and sighed, with the ship being at such an angle that climbing up the next level would require traversing a floor that was almost vertical. Not </span>
  <em>
    <span>impossible</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but still not </span>
  <em>
    <span>fun</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hopping up from the hatchway, she caught a doorway and swung herself up, jumping off doorways as if they were ledges and her hands finding purchase in even the smallest crevices, grinning in spite of herself as she jumped, kicked, flipped, and scrambled her way across the numerous vertical hallways of what was clearly the barracks and bunks level of the ship. It was slow going, even for her, given the condition of the pathways she was forced to traverse, and she wasn’t sure how much time she was burning before she managed to swing up a flight of stairs and emerge onto another level, finding herself in offices and terminal rooms.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The bodies were far more numerous here, and she sighed in repressed morbidity as she scrambled and snuck her way through the corridors and hatchways, eventually finding the doors to the elevators. Hopping a distance over broken metal to reach the elevator doors, she drew one of her blades from her back and jammed it in before using it to pry the lift doors open, using her body weight to open them the rest of the way. Unsurprisingly, the elevator shafts were in horrific condition, and the lift cars themselves were nowhere to be seen, having likely snapped from their tethors in the crash and plummeted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sheathing her sword, she jumped out and grabbed onto an exposed pipe heading down the side of the shaft and began to shimmy her way up at a rapid pace, jumping from one pipe to another when needed in order to keep going until she reached the top level and she was forced to pry the doors open again and slip out. Nodding in satisfaction that she had reached the command tower, she blinked and raised  an eyebrow at the chaos within, with numerous slaughtered bodies strewn across command terminals and along the floor that were clearly all dead even before the crash, if the stab wounds and snapped necks were any indication. </span>
  <span>Sheathing her blade again, she hopped up onto the nearest counter to find purchase as she straightened to look around the riskily tilted room. Glancing at the numerous terminals, she narrowed her eyes as she took in the fight around her and tried to piece it together, trying to find the story of what had happened to turn the ship against the others so easily and so soon into the battle itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While she didn’t doubt that Torchwick had a part to play in it, he’d been locked in a cell at the time. But Chrystal didn’t really know why she was bothering to try and find an answer to a mystery that really wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> mysterious.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Neo.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sighing in frustration and defeat at the situation, at what she saw around her and what it had led to, Chrystal dropped into a sitting position on the counter with her legs dangling to keep balance, and she closed her eyes and let her head droop. This was where the Knights and Paladins were turned against them, and the slaughtering of civilians had begun in earnest because of it. Then because of that, Petyr had run straight into the communications tower without hesitation to solve it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And had lost his life because of it. All to save them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swallowing a lump in her throat and wiping the back of her hand across her eyes to remove the tears that were threatening to drop out again, she bit her bottom lip hard enough she tasted blood as she looked back up and shook her head in weighted defeat. She could have gotten into the tower just as easily as he did, alongside him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She could have protected him from whatever it was that had happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, failing that, gone down at his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But instead he was...gone, and she was abandoned and alone. Having spent the better part of two hours crawling through the bent and broken ruins of a crashed gunship just in the faint hope that she’d be able to see some way to safety. Some sign of life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dropping off the counter, she slid down a few inches until her feet found purchase again and she straightened,  hopping from terminal to terminal until she reached one of the command room windows and swung out of the shattered glass, twisting around to climb up onto the roof of the command center and looking up at the truly massive spire of the radio relay tower that went high into the sky and would give her the view she needed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Strangely enough, it was going to be the easiest part of the climb, and she leapt up onto the side and quickly scrambled and shimmied her way up the massive metal wires and pylons, ending up high enough in the sky that the metal itself felt as if it was swaying due to the wind. But her balance was perfect as she hopped up the final few meters and crouched onto the arm of the relay, crawling her way up the one angled into the sky and standing on top of the precarious top of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At such a height she had a perfect view over the entirety of the city in every direction, and she saw the miles and miles of destruction and carnage. Not a single district of the city had been left unharmed, and there were barely a couple of buildings taller than three stories that were still even slightly intact and weren’t just jagged or burnt ruins. Looking out over the destruction, she could see the story of the battle laid out in front of her for her eyes to read, seeing where the Grimm had entered the city and begun to sweep through it, then where the Paladins and Knights had been most concentrated at the moment they were turned. The fires and bombed buildings of the White Fang were concentrated along main roads from where the squads of terrorists had moved from street to street butchering and burning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even from the distance, the sheer scale of the stone dragon was terrifying to take in, perched onto the side of Beacon Tower with its claws dug into the once glamorous windows, and the roof of the tower itself entirely destroyed. The last she had seen of the dragon, it had been rampaging in the skies over the city, yet now it was a statue, clearly made of stone if the colour and texture of it was any indication.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaking her head in disbelief as she took it in, Chrystal kept looking out over the city, trying to see through the destruction and wreckage and catch any sign of life or movement that wasn’t Grimm. Reaching into her mission pouch, she grabbed out a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon as best as she could through the smoke and ash, but in every direction things seemed to be the same way. If survivors had been evacuated, the airjets would have needed room to land and take off, which meant either the fairgrounds, the city airjet terminals, or the large clearings on the southern outskirts of the city, near the water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sweeping her view over the fairgrounds, she saw nothing but signs of destruction and battle, so she turned to the city airjet pads and saw ruined airjets and destroyed buildings. Which meant the southern outskirts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Normally, on foot, it was easily a full day of walking away, over ten hours. It was why people usually took the bus or the tram to get that far out. But now that the city was in </span>
  <em>
    <span>ruins </span>
  </em>
  <span>in its current state, and filled with Grimm and other dangers?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three days. Easily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Four if she let herself get even the bare minimum healthy amount of sleep, but three if she pushed herself to dangerous levels.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lacking even the emotional energy to swear in despair, she simply slid the binoculars back into her pouch and buckled it closed before sitting on the metal railing and planning out her trip. No point bitching or crying over it. There was no way of knowing how long evacuation and rescue efforts might persist, so she had to get moving as quickly and efficiently as possible if she wanted to reach them before efforts were potentially given up, and while she wouldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>expect </span>
  </em>
  <span>that to happen very soon she wasn’t willing to bet her life on just </span>
  <em>
    <span>assuming </span>
  </em>
  <span>any degree of safety.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking out over the city below her, she frowned as she planned potential routes, drawing and then scrapping them just as quickly, chewing on the inside of her lip. The city was truly in a state of ruin, and plenty of it was still dangerous with fire and unstable rubble and wreckage, and while the Grimm in the streets were a given there was no way of knowing whether or not there were still groups of White Fang taking easy pickings, or even potentially bandits and looters that had swooped in quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the unknown variables that were going to slow her trip down the most, since she had to prepare for </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>of them instead of preparing for </span>
  <em>
    <span>none </span>
  </em>
  <span>of them. If it was just Grimm she didn’t have to travel particularly quietly, just quickly and calmly, but if there were still enemies in the city she </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be quieter and a bit slower. While she knew she could handle herself in a fight, especially against common criminals or White Fang, the more fights she got into the more likely it was she’d make that one fatal slip or mistake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no such thing as an inevitable outcome in a fight. No matter how confident you are going into it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Huffing in frustration as she stood, picking a general route to take, she slid down the relay tower and dropped onto the cracked cement of the massive open deck of the ship, skidding down until she almost reached the edge and then stopping, taking a moment to look all the way down to the ground below and raising an eyebrow. While she never really got the little voice telling her to jump from being up high anymore, there was the occasional nihilistic thought that it would be a fast solution to an infinite amount of problems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a thought she entertained for a few moments longer than she ought to each time it happened, and this was one of those times as the view down simply showed her more destruction and ruin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaking her head slowly to snap herself out of it, she swung back inside of the command tower and simply began to retrace her steps, emerging from the same crack she had initially squeezed inside of just over an hour later and hopping to the ground, brushing her hands together to remove the metal dust and ash from her gloves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Making her way down the length of the ship to head south, she ended up having to climb and crawl through the ruins of buildings that the ship had either crashed into or collapsed nearby buildings on top of, but she didn’t particularly mind, finding the exercise and movement to be mindless work, instead focusing her attention on her surroundings. </span>
  <span>Emerging onto the streets again as soon as she was able, still in the dark shadow of the ship, she raised her eyebrows at the notable lack of Grimm in the area before deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and continuing her way down through the streets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t last long, as even a whole five minutes later there wasn’t a sign of a single Grimm, and it had a small alarm bell ringing in her mind which compelled her to draw one of her blades to keep at her side, her senses more alert. Scrambling through rubble and broken buildings as she passed through streets, her senses picked up the sound of rubble being dislodged from nearby and a gun was in her hand in less than an instant. Carefully making her way towards the sound, she blinked and raised her eyebrows as she saw the White Fang member twitching and grasping at anything nearby, fresh stab wounds in his torso bleeding red onto the white of his uniform. And he wasn’t alone, a few of his friends were nearby and were either already dead or in a similar state.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Holstering her pistol and leaning down to study their stab wounds, Chrystal’s eyes narrowed at the perfect puncture of them, and she found herself gripping the hilt of her blade a bit tighter as her mind took in the distinct shape of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Standing slowly and continuing on her way, following any tracks and trails of fresh blood, or signs of disturbance, she sped along as her sharp eyes picked up the most recent signs of movement or disruption to the terrain, and her movements quietened as she made more effort to stay out of sight of the streets below while she moved from building to building, spending as much time inside the ruins as possible to remain invisible to the streets below.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shadows cast by the ship were oppressive, covering entire city blocks, and the area was unnervingly silent, without even a breeze. Every small sound sounded as if it echoed, and Chrystal made sure to make as little of them as possible as she kept heading south. With no Grimm, and no signs of life, she should have felt safe, but instead it just had her hair standing on edge more and more.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Everything inside of her snapped to attention like a jolt of lightning when she heard a shout, and she immediately began to head in that direction, the telltale sounds of combat around a city block away, close to the wreckage of the ship, but they silenced before she even arrived despite her speed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pausing when the sounds of combat stopped as quickly as it had begun, Chrystal took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as she continued in the same direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hopping down from the second story window she was climbing through, she darted through the collapsed ruins of another shop before stopping and ducking behind cover as quickly as she could, which to others would have been too fast to even see.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peering out around the side of it, she watched as a woman picked and poked through the rubble and wreckage around the ship silently, an unreadable expression on their face as they went as quickly as they could, clearly distracted, but not so distracted that the three thugs who were dead only a short distance away had managed to get the drop on her when they’d tried.<br/>
</span>
  <span>All thoughts of heading further through the city towards safety blew from Chrystal’s mind like dust as she stared, and her gun left its holster to enter her left hand again as she checked the edge of her sword, an unreadable expression on her face as she hopped out of the ruins and into the clearing of rubble and rocks around the base of the ship, barely two dozen paces away from the girl who clearly saw no need to disguise herself now that everything was said and done.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Even the sound of Chrystal flicking the safety off was loud enough to be audible, and the girl sorting through the rubble immediately straightened and spun on her foot, hand falling to the handle of the parasol on her hip as Chrystal was finally able to stare ice into the mismatched eyes of Neopolitan.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Photos didn’t do it justice, the girl in front of her was almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>eerie </span>
  </em>
  <span>to look at, with enough similarity to Cypher that it was uncomfortable but enough unique appearance that she was undeniably beautiful in her own way. She was </span>
  <em>
    <span>far </span>
  </em>
  <span>shorter than Cypher was, only slightly above shoulder height for Chrystal, but was built of the same lean dancing muscles and curves. The angles of her face were softer than Cypher’s as well, but instead of that making her </span>
  <em>
    <span>less </span>
  </em>
  <span>intimidating it somehow enhanced it, lacking the pixieish playfulness that Cypher’s sharper features gave her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile Neo’s eyes flashed with recognition after a moment as she looked at Chrystal, and her parasol was immediately off her hip and down by her side as she matched Chrystal’s cold expression with a wary one of her own, immediately acknowledging just from how Chrystal was looking at her that there was not going to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything </span>
  </em>
  <span>playful about what was to follow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The game of cat and mouse was over.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As Chrystal clicked back the hammer of her pistol with her thumb, a simple flick of a button from Neo extended the tip of the blade from her parasol, neither of them blinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The small clearing was completely silent as the two of them stared at each other, each of them unsure who was going to be the one to move first in the shadow of the gunship that had inadvertently been responsible for the losses of the person each of them loved.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The halls of Salem’s castle was awash in the sound of an agonised and tortured scream echoing even through the closed door of Delilah’s new laboratory, graciously granted to her by her new queen while she proved her usefulness. While the screams were not audible throughout the </span>
  <em>
    <span>entire </span>
  </em>
  <span>castle, they pierced through enough of it that most of the denizens had to actively work to block out the sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From inside the room itself, Salem watched impassively as Delilah had Cinder strapped down onto one of the slabs inside, one hand on the woman’s chest to paralyse her and hold her steady, while the other had her fingers delicately pressed against the horrific stub of her patient’s scorched arm as she cut away the cooked and ruined flesh, removing the last of the damage of what Ruby had done to her. But there were no painkillers or anesthetics available, not that Delilah had much interest in using them anyway, so Cinder was forced to feel every moment as the last chunks of her ruined arm were removed, the deadened flesh dropping away and turning to dust under Delilah’s coaxing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it was done and only the stub remained, Delilah hummed in satisfaction at her clean work as she studied the result, humming in scrutiny. While externally they were both silent, which unnerved Cinder greatly as the throbbing agony faded, inside their minds Salem quietly and calmly coached Delilah in how to access the new power within herself, and what she was specifically to do. Nodding in understanding and giving a slightly sadistic smile to her queen, Delilah’s face took on the same contemplative and curious look she always got when she was about to try something new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Closing her eyes, she reached into the new flesh within herself, the black writhing blood, and felt it speak back to her, her eyes flooding black with only the greens of her irises as any sign of colour once again as she awakened the parts of her that had been gradually corrupted and enhanced from tuning into Grimm blood for months even before she had been altered. Placing one hand on Cinder’s shoulder and the other just above the new stub of her arm, Delilah concentrated, and Cinder’s flesh began to ripple and bulge as new flesh was forcibly grown from inside it, bulging out and travelling to where it needed to grow and emerge from.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At Delilah’s coaxing and encouragement, dark skeletal flesh began to emerge from the stub and form, taking the shape of a blackened and twisted arm that swirled with the dark purple of Salem’s particular kind of magic underneath the surface as it grew, agonising enough that Cinder couldn’t stop the screaming from emerging no matter how hard she tried to hold it back, both to put on a brave face but also to not give Delilah any sadistic satisfaction. But as flesh was injected into her flesh and forcibly grown her mind felt the intrusion and corruption, and every nerve was on fire as the veins and nerve-endings at the end of her stub turned black as they sealed to her new arm, and sensation appeared in it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a minute of gradual focus, the work was done, and Delilah removed her hands from Cinder and looked in closely to study her work for any imperfections or flaws in what Salem had asked of her, with her unique Semblance of interacting with mortal flesh being what allowed her to do what Salem alone couldn’t, the other woman’s powers only extending to the creation and control of the Grimm. With the Black Flesh inside of Delilah, creating things related to the Grimm was now possible within her power, and the first result of that hybrid creation was the arm now attached to her once superior.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stepping back with a respectful nod to Salem, Delilah folded her hands behind her back as her queen stepped close to study the work, raising her eyebrow and giving a nod of satisfaction to Delilah.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Excellent work. You learn fast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, my queen. Months of experimenting with aura attunement have helped. This was a similar process, except I wasn’t attuning it to </span>
  <em>
    <span>myself, </span>
  </em>
  <span>of course.” Delilah gave a bow of her head in gratitude for the praise, and smiled slightly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With a wave of her hand, Salem snapped the bindings that had been holding the now panting and sweating Cinder in place, the maiden sitting up shakily and looking down at her new corrupted arm, weakly testing the movement of her fingers and the sensation within it, able to feel touch and tension as if it were a regular arm but also able to feel the touches of Salem’s magic inside of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shivering from the pain fading away and clarity returning to her mind, Cinder shook her head to clear the last of it before looking up at her queen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman still couldn’t speak, her throat and lungs too damaged from being scorched by the power of silver-eyes, but she croaked to signal that she was alright, trying to ignore the scrutinising look that Delilah was giving her, the girl looking at her as if she was an experiment that had results she was unsure how to feel about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Salem gently lifted Cinder’s new arm to study it closely, checking if it was to her satisfaction and capable of everything it would be needed for, humming in approval after a few moments and releasing it, before placing a hand on top of Cinder’s head almost affectionately.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Go rest, Cinder. We shall begin your training tomorrow, without delay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>Nodding weakly, unable to reply, Cinder stood from the slab and swayed on her feet for a few moments before slowly limping her way out of the room, pausing for a moment next to Delilah to look at her for a second and eventually nod in thanks, Delilah giving a smile and nodding back. </span><br/>
<br/>
“It’s the least I could do, after what you’ve done for me. Sleep well, Cinder. I’ll try and fix your throat and lungs soon, okay?”</p><p>
  <span>A small smile flickering onto her features for a brief moment, Cinder continued making her way out, the door opening for her and then sliding closed, leaving just Salem and Delilah in the room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Very well, Delilah. It appears you are able to make use of your new abilities just as I had expected from you. I assume you have improvements for your children in mind already?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do, my queen. But…” Delilah hesitated, always unwilling to admit to any sort of weakness or uncertainty. “It will take trial and error.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well of course, I do not expect instant perfection, child.” Salem gave an amused chuckle before folding her hands behind her back. “But I do demand effort and improvement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, my queen. What are your orders?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pausing to consider it, Salem took in the girl in front of her, taking stock. Not only had Delilah shown the capabilities of her creations at Beacon, she had also demonstrated her own cunning and skill in combat. While she was not on the same level as Tyrian, in her own way she was equally as martially capable as Hazel, and certainly more skilled than either of Cinder’s subordinates. It meant that it was safe for her to be left to her own devices for the most part, and not be in any danger of easy capture or subjugation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that skill had been </span>
  <em>
    <span>before </span>
  </em>
  <span>her enhancement, which had improved her in ways that she wagered the girl wasn’t fully aware of yet. But she would be, if given time to experiment and test herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rest for the rest of the day and night, while you will not need to sleep as much as you used to, you will still have to for a handful of hours. Then depart for Mistral alongside Doctor Watts and continue your experiments. Our timetable for dealing with Haven is six months, you have until then to build your forces and improve your children as much as possible.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in understanding, her mind already swimming with ideas and possibilities if she was truly given permission to conduct her experiments at will for the next half a year, Delilah’s eyes widened and a smile broke out on her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, my queen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. One of my Seers will be accompanying you, to supervise and communicate. If you are called upon, you return without delay, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no matter how caught up you are.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Salem’s eyes hardened and her tone went stern as she looked at the obsessive girl in front of her, and Delilah flinched before forcing her excitement away and straightening in obedience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Holding the girl’s gaze for a while longer to cut into her and make her command clear, Salem was satisfied when Delilah flinched again and looked down in submission. “Do well, Delilah. Impress me. We both know you are capable of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Flushing slightly at the compliment, Delilah nodded in eager obedience and gave a nervous but willing smile. “I will, my queen. Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You leave tomorrow morning. Watts will collect you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With that, Salem began to leave the room without a second look, only pausing when she got to the door and she turned to face where the girl had started preparing her room for sleep, as exhaustion </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>started to grip her muscles due to not having slept since the night before the battle for Beacon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And remember Delilah, they may be your children, but you make them for </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>. They are made of you, yes, but they do not belong to you. Not anymore.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Flinching at the thought, at her new reality, Delilah bit her lip and looked down at the floor, closing her eyes in a form of submissive grief as she nodded. It was a horrific and agonising thought, but it was what she had traded away in exchange for the ability to make her children happier and healthier. That was the deal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If it meant her children were healthier, it was worth making. The sacrifice was worth making.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it still hurt like a knife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I understand, my queen.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Without another word, Salem left the room, the door closing behind her and leaving Delilah alone with her thoughts and her preparations. While she didn’t have much in the way of belongings, having left all of her belongings from Beacon behind except for her combat clothes and her weapons, it would be easy enough to get her hands on more once she was back among civilisation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But for now her room was relatively spartan. A combined bedroom and laboratory, it was a decently sized space, with a few bare bits of furniture she gathered she was allowed to fill and use as was best for her work, with bookcases and shelves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unpacking her bag, she removed the few jars she had inside of it of different brain sections she had collected during the battle, and she began to place them onto one of the shelves in order from least to most important and powerful, faltering in her sorting as she pulled out the jars containing Lelise’s and Ursa’s. Thinning her lips as she looked down at them, she felt a pang in her heart at what she’d done before placing the jars in their places. With only six brain sections collected, she currently had six chances to get Doctor Rosha’s theory to work, until she was able to collect more once she was back in Mistral and had enough of her stronger children that she could hunt down some Huntsmen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she would leave Lelise’s and Ursa’s until she had the work figured out. She wouldn’t waste them or risk destroying them pointlessly as just a failed experiment attempt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Looking around her room silently, she kept her bag filled with only what she would need for her trip, specifically her weapons and their maintenance gear, but she had very little else. Noting in her mind to get her hands on more clothes and basic supplies, she caught herself curious if she still needed to eat and drink, and frowned at having a personal experiment to conduct on herself over the next few days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While her body currently felt as if it was self-sustaining, Salem had said she still needed some sleep, so there was every chance her metabolism and bodily functions were just greatly slowed instead of completely self-sustainable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Humming in fascinated thought, she went back to sorting, finishing her packing for the next morning before realising she </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>extremely exhausted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sitting on the edge of her bed, she almost began to remove her combat boots when there was a knock on her door. Raising an eyebrow curiously, she placed a hand on the wall to open the door, having been right in her suspicion that the building itself was slightly alive and clearly responded to those inside of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a hum of curiosity as Doctor Watts took a single step in, and Delilah sat up straighter in curiosity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What can I do for you, Doctor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh nothing pressing, I just saw the work you had done on Cinder’s arm and was told you will be accompanying me to Mistral tomorrow.” Arthur stepped in far enough that the door closed behind him, and he curiously stepped over to study the jars of brain sections on her shelves as he spoke. “Morbid. I do hope you intend on keeping things around here sanitised.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chuckling at his own joke, he picked up one of the jars to study it, only to look up when Delilah stood with a snarl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Put her back. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Now</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her…?” Arthur raised an eyebrow, before his mouth twitched in understanding and amusement as he looked at the brain again. “Ah, I see. One of the friends you betrayed and butchered. Well, at least you won’t be lonely, since you brought them with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Put. Her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Back</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chuckling, Arthur placed the jar where he had taken it from and folded his hands behind his back as he regarded Delilah, who was quite a few inches shorter than him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tomorrow we will be flying to Haven, where I will be speaking with Professor Lionheart. On my way either there or back, you are to be dropped off at a town or village of your choice to begin your...work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m aware.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Salem has also instructed me to allow you to attend the meeting if you desire.” Arthur sneered, clearly unhappy with the idea, before pinning Delilah with a stern and almost scolding look. “If you do so, I would request you not intervene. Lionheart is an obedient man, but also a skittish one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In my experience, that’s an increasingly common trait among professors and headmasters.” Delilah scoffed, turning away from the man in dismissal and leaning against the shelves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quite. Which is why I...recommend...that you remain quiet. Yes, you are...off-putting, but you are not ready to be a representative of our queen.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Thinking over it for a few moments, which Arthur seemed content to allow her to do, Delilah didn’t give any outward sign of what she was thinking. Despite the fact she was increasingly unfond of the man, he was also right. While her power might be growing, she wasn’t a politician or a diplomat, it wasn’t a game she was ever interested in playing. Salem’s orders were for her to resume her experiments on a grand scale for six months unless ordered otherwise in the meantime. That was it, and it was a mission she would do willingly and more than happily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t a spokesperson.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So she nodded, without any resentment in the movement. “Of course, I understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good.” Arthur seemed almost surprised at how reasonable her response was, having expected a childish protest or some other sort of immature reaction. Delilah bit the inside of her lip quietly in thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would still like to be in attendance though, even if just to observe. I’m not in the loop of exactly how we operate and conduct ourselves yet. I’d like the chance to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulling over it for a few moments, his hands still folded behind his back, Arthur hummed in agreement and gave a terse nod. “I suppose that is an acceptable request. Very well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you Doctor. And if I am to pick a town of my choice, I would appreciate any suggestions you can provide on where has the least amount of the pitifully remaining scroll coverage. It would help me to remain discrete and undiscovered.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can get that information during our time in Haven easily enough.” Arthur scoffed as if the request was almost insulting in how easy it would be to achieve, and he began to make his way towards the door, giving one last glance to the brains. “Tomorrow morning without delay, child.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be there, Doctor.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Giving her one last curious glance before he left the room, studying her demeanour for a few moments and tapping his fingers together with his hands still behind his back, Arthur hummed in intrigued thought as he left the room. Delilah hadn’t been what he had expected her to be, having expected either a child out of her depth like Cinder’s little team, or a cackling psychopath like Tyrian.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead she was polite, intelligent, and reasonable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made what she did, what she was, and what she was intending to do...all the more disconcerting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, if she continued to be agreeable, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>supposed </span>
  </em>
  <span>he could work alongside her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And from the way Salem had looked at her, it was clearly he wouldn’t have much of a choice either way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From the look in his queen’s eyes, a lost child had come home.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Despite his composure, he shivered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've been waiting for this for Chrystal since I started writing part one. It may take a while to write since I want to do what I envisioned for it justice.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Untouchable Girl</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Chrystal Wasara, the Untouchable Girl, is the one that Logan Goroesi is searching Vale to try and save, without realising that any hope of truly saving her was lost a very long time ago. If there ever truly was a chance in the first place.</p><p>But being alone with nothing to distract herself except for anger, darkness, and self-indulgent bad decisions, isn't strange territory for her in the slightest.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A few Trigger Warnings for this one.</p><p>TW: drug references, alcoholism, self-harm, light description of sex that I personally wouldn't classify as smut, mental illness (PTSD and bi-polar disorder), suicidal ideation, and a brief instance of sexual assault.</p><p>Basically Chrystal is a mess.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hitting the grass, Chrystal laid panting as she looked up at the sunny sky above, dirt and sweat caking the exposed skin of her arms and shoulders from where her training top didn’t cover. Covered in a wide number of bruises, she closed her eyes to rest for a few moments, listening to the birds and the breeze, before her brief reprieve was interrupted.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re faster than this.”</p><p> </p><p>Groaning, she opened her eyes and sat up to look at where Brex Kamisari was looking at her with scrutinising and curious eyes. No matter how disappointing she was during training, he never looked bothered by it. When she failed, he only ever got curious as to why. Outside of training, Brex was a <em> very </em> intense and <em> very </em>angry man, but it was like that all washed away as soon as it was time to train for her and Shina’s survival.</p><p>And when it was, he pushed them until they <em> broke. </em> Day in and day out.</p><p>Stretching her shoulders without standing, at sixteen years old Chrystal was slowly reaching the end of her amateur training, with the Beacon entrance exam rapidly coming up and the time left to prepare for it vanishing. While the teachers of Pharos Academy believed that she and Shina were more than ready, Brex agreed that his son was but had his reservations about her. And the man wouldn’t just bluntly come out and say why.</p><p>If the Kamisari family had one shortcoming that her real family hadn’t, it was that none of them could ever just come out and say what they were thinking, not even Shina.</p><p> </p><p>Kicking up to her feet, she wiped the back of her training glove over her mouth before spitting out blood from burst gums.</p><p>“I’m fast enough.”</p><p>“So you’re letting yourself get hit?”</p><p>Bringing the quarterstaff he used up over his shoulders to rest his arms over it casually, Brex gave her a curious stare, raising his eyebrow as he shifted his feet into a ready position again and slowly brought his staff back down to a proper stance when she simply glared instead of replying.</p><p>“Like all people, your Semblance stops when your aura breaks. You should be used to this by now.”</p><p>“I am.” Chrystal growled.</p><p>“Then why are you being so <em> slow? </em>”</p><p>To prove his point, Brex lashed out at her again, and only a few blocks and dodges later, Chrystal easily able to avoid the first flurries by twisting and ducking out of what she could shift away from and deflecting away what she couldn’t, eventually she was glanced in the arm, knocking her just enough the follow up to her gut doubled her over and a fierce crack to the side of her knee brought her down to the dirt again, causing her to growl more viciously in frustration and slam her fist into the ground. Waiting quietly and patiently as she calmed down, Brex simply put one tip of his quarterstaff into the dirt and rested on it, taking weight off his crippled leg to give it a few minutes of rest. They’d been training for three hours, Chrystal always pushing herself to a lethal limit that few other students would be willing to dare, especially considering she insisted on training under the specific condition of having Brex be willing to break her aura so that the stakes were as real as they could be without a lethal weapon being used.</p><p>Chrystal’s skills with her blades were...acceptable, even by Brex’s extraordinarily high standards, and her aim was among the best in Pharos Academy, so it was her unarmed combat she insisted on training on as much as possible, ending most weekdays a mess of bruises and fresh callouses for her aura to heal in her sleep.</p><p>Despite the best efforts of Brex and his wife, she’d never opened up as to why she was the way she was, and while Helena had wanted to keep pressing and coaxing the girl to open up, Brex had eventually relented once Chrystal had turned fifteen and it had become clear to him that she had her own way of dealing with whatever happened to her inside. If part of it meant breaking herself in training, it also meant she’d get stronger for it, and he could hardly deny her learning how to survive no matter how potentially unhealthy her motivations.</p><p>Even before she’d lost her family five years ago and become basically his adopted daughter, Chrystal had always loved exercise, but it had begun to change at thirteen when she’d started to finally show some signs of damage. The local instructors at Pharos had eventually recommended to Brex and Helena that Chrystal be prevented from becoming a Huntsman entirely due to their concerns, but Brex had insisted that it was Chrystal’s decision to make.</p><p>Because it<em> was. </em></p><p> </p><p>The girl kicked up to her feet again, looking down at herself when her purple aura crackled as it reformed, having refilled enough it could rematerialise and kick back in. Nodding at herself, she felt the bursts in her gums close and some of the bruises and sprains fading. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she clapped her hands together and bounced on her feet before stepping into sparring range and raising her fists in preparation again.</p><p>“With your Semblance this time?” Brex hummed in curiosity as he got ready, knowing full well what was coming.</p><p>“Yeah. I need to memorise the difference.”</p><p>“Then stop holding back. It’ll get you killed. You have <em> instinct, </em> Chrystal. Use it.” Brex pressed with a stern look. “You’re <em> never </em>going to be a disciplined fighter. Stop trying to be.”</p><p>“The instructors keep saying-”</p><p>“They’re <em> wrong. </em>” Brex swung at her in a similar flurry and sequence to what he’d done before, completely unsurprised when everything was easily dodged and deflected, her enhanced reflexes and reaction speed coming into play and making trying to penetrate her defenses almost a pointless cause.</p><p>No matter what he threw at her, and he was able to go all out when her Semblance was in play, he was never going to hit her. No-one ever could, as she saw everything coming almost before he even tried to do it, and her agility and flexibility were scarily inhuman even when her aura was broken but like this she was able to use it to the best of her ability. But then her weakness showed itself as she couldn’t get a hit on him in return, even as she swung and slid. No matter how hard he pushed her, no matter how hard the instructors at Pharos tried, she always did the same thing when she was on offense;</p><p>She slowed down.</p><p>It was as if her enhanced agility vanished entirely, and not only that but she was actually slower than most others were normally, and it made defending against her as easy as she found being on the defensive herself. Eventually she’d tire herself out and the relentless pushing would drain her aura, and her Semblance would vanish yet again.</p><p>Such as right...<em> now.  </em></p><p> </p><p>The moment her aura drained from the constant pushing of her muscles and the impacts of her hands and feet on the resistance of the staff and his own legs, she slowed an increment further, just enough once again she was cracked across the jaw and shoved over, sent sprawling to her knees and spitting blood yet again.<br/>Bringing her arm back and slamming her fist into the ground in frustration, they both heard a knuckle snap as a finger threatened to break from her painfully hard impact into solid ground, her aura broken from her own painful exertion and strain. Bringing her other arm back, she began to pummel into the ground in frustrated fury for a few moments before giving it up and sitting back on her knees, sweat dripping down her face from the brutal workout underneath the mid-afternoon weekend sun.</p><p>Stepping out from his backdoor, Shina sighed in concern as he rested against the doorframe and looked over at the small sparring area in their backyard and watched as Chrystal kicked up again to keep trying. With his own aura rapidly healing his injuries from the day of training, he never pushed himself as hard as Chrystal did. Not that he was even able to these days, out of concern that his freshly awakened Semblance would kick in without his prompting, but even before that he’d never matched her masochism.</p><p>But he’d given up trying to slow her or stop her. The last time he’d properly tried it had ended in a fight where she’d stormed off and vanished into the cliffs and trees outside of town for two days, doing whatever she did out there. When she’d come back she acted as if nothing had happened. She always did. But it had been made clear that it was the end of that subject entirely if he didn’t want to hurt her for good.<br/>So he simply watched quietly, unnoticed, as his father pummelled her into the ground over and over again, and would only stop when she either called it quits or was knocked out properly. Knowing her, it would be the knockout.</p><p> </p><p>Between her shoddy offense and her concerningly low aura reserves, Chrystal was constantly in danger whilever she was in single combat with an opponent who would normally be considered her equal or superior, having to fight battles of attrition and tricking her opponents into exhausting themselves against her defenses until she got her opening. It was a method she’d mastered, and she was considered a top-tier fighter because of her win-loss ratio, but against single-combat specialists like Brex and now Shina, she was usually doomed.</p><p>The fact she was able to occasionally beat Shina prompted <em> frustration </em> at <em> him </em> from his father more than it got <em> her </em> some <em> praise </em>from him.</p><p>Watching as Chrystal was sent to the ground again, this time having gotten a few hits in but not enough to cause more than a small crackle from Brex’s aura, Shina heard a concerned sigh from over his shoulder as his mother stepped up to watch as well.</p><p>“I hate watching her train.” Helena winced as she watched Chrystal almost immediately kick back up and try.</p><p>“Yeah… Me too, mum.”</p><p>“You’ll look out for her in Beacon, right love?”</p><p>“I’ll try.”</p><p> </p><p>They both watched quietly for a bit longer, before Helena shook her head and went back inside, Shina following her as she went back to the living room to continue reading her book and he flopped down at the table to continue cleaning Hornet’s Kiss after the day of training. But he noticed as his mother didn’t turn a page for a while and looked over to where she was looking at the wall in thought, her hand on the page to keep her place.</p><p>It always bothered him when his mother expressed any desire for him to ‘look after’ Chrystal, considering they were both the same age and in a lot of ways he wasn’t any better than she was, in fact he had his own fair share of bad habits and made an equal amount of bad decisions. But none of his could result in permanent harm, so in a lot of ways he understood her concern. They also both shared the same opinion of how hard his dad pushed her, but he knew that was mostly because of how things between him and his father were these days.</p><p>“Her therapist called yesterday morning.” Helena spoke up quietly, her voice soft and almost vulnerable as she bit her lip.</p><p>“...I thought we all said we’d leave her alone with it.” Giving almost a glare over at his mother for where he hoped she wasn’t going with it and violating his best friend’s privacy, he hesitated when she shook her head and looked back down at her book without reading a word.</p><p>“That’s the thing, love. She hasn’t been going. She’s skipped the last four sessions.”</p><p>“...oh.” He sighed, closing his eyes as a suspicion was confirmed. “Shit.”</p><p>“You were right.” Helena sighed, finally giving up on her book and flipping it closed.</p><p>Nodding sadly, Shina finished with his sword and slid it back into its sheath with a definitive click when it slid home, and he mumbled to himself as he glanced towards the door again. “It’s almost as if I know her.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The cool night air up on the cliff's edge overlooking the forests below was heaven on her sweaty and hot skin as she sighed and sat back, resting on her arms as she looked up at the starry skies and smiled. Up this high above the town lights below, the light pollution didn’t reach, so the stars above were always visible in all their beauty and glory.</p><p>Hearing a satisfied but tired groan from behind her on the large comfortable blanket, she looked over her shoulder at her partner, a cute girl named Trixxie, and upon making eye contact with the worn-out girl she gave a soft smile before snatching up the bottle of...something, that she’d managed to easily swipe from the bottle shop on her way through, and she took a long drink before passing it back to the other girl, who waved it off with a baffled but impressed grin.</p><p>“I don’t have your tolerance, babe.”</p><p>“You tapping out?”</p><p>“Wouldn’t be the first time tonight, would it?” </p><p> </p><p>Trixxie gave her a cheeky grin and a wink, and Chrystal smirked and shrugged smugly before taking another slow drink while keeping eye-contact with the other girl, raising her eyebrows in a question. Trixxie coughed out a laugh before snatching up her shirt and pulling it over her head.</p><p>“Give me a bit of a rest, then maybe. Gods, your Semblance does you a lot of favours, doesn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>Shrugging again as a small dark throb went through her before she could throw it off, Chrystal put the lid back on the bottle and tossed it back onto the blanket gently enough it wouldn’t break, before looking back down off the cliff at the ground far below, tilting her head as the same little voice whispered in the back of her brain before she squashed it down violently, never letting it get too loud whilever she had company.<br/>No matter how persistent it had been growing during her nights over the past couple of months as the Beacon exam came closer and her time able to hide in the trees and cliffs was running out.</p><p>Almost as if the other girl was able to read her mind, Trixxie shuffled up behind her and rested her chin on Chrystal’s shoulder. “When do you leave for the exam?”</p><p>“A month. Then back here for three before I leave for good, assuming I get in.”</p><p>“You will. You’re a good Huntress, babe.”</p><p> </p><p>Snorting in disbelief, Chrystal paused for a moment before smiling in thanks and accepting the compliment despite her own opinions considering her training with Brex earlier in the day, of which some of the injuries were still healing despite her aura being completely refilled, always recharging at an exceptional rate given how little of it there was.</p><p>“Gonna miss you though.” Trixxie kissed the back of her neck, causing Chrystal to hesitate for a moment and Trixxie felt her freeze under her touch, and she rushed to quietly reassure her. “Don’t worry babe, I know this isn’t more than it is.”</p><p>“Right.” Chrystal nodded, her shoulders losing some of the tension that had hit them. “Just remember we <em> can </em>stop before you might get hurt.”</p><p>“I know. Promise.” Trixxie tried to sigh as quietly as possible before she took a drink, both of them knowing that Trixxie <em> did </em>silently have proper feelings for the other girl.</p><p> </p><p>Yet that didn’t stop Chrystal from fooling around with her anyway, and she knew the other girl <em> wouldn’t </em> stop herself. They never did, whether it was boy or girl, and it had resulted in a fair bit of damage in her wake. And every time someone else got involved with her, knowing her reputation, they always convinced themselves that <em> they </em> wouldn’t get feelings for the local fucked up girl who took her play-partners to the cliffs for privacy.<br/>But there’s something seductive about being damaged and raw, and it almost always ended the same way.</p><p>Shuffling a bit closer to the cliff edge so she could dangle her legs off of it, Chrystal looked down at the ground far below now that she had a better view, her expression going scarily soft as she smiled at the sheer height of the drop, before she looked up at the stars yet again with her expression turning to one of almost childlike wonder, her eyes picking out her favourites that appeared at this time of the year.</p><p>There was always something comforting about this time of night, even if she was up in her favourite place alone. <em> Especially </em>if she was alone, when she was allowed to think the sort of thoughts that she locked away around other people so certain things wouldn’t be visible in her eyes, and so certain voices wouldn’t be audible in her ears. It wasn’t her fault. That’s what her therapist kept trying to tell her.</p><p>But if she could stop it by force, it felt like if it <em> did </em> slip out that it <em> was </em>her fault. Some sort of weakness or failure.</p><p> </p><p>Lingering on it, outside it was only a handful of moments but in her mind it felt like it was hours worth of thinking as her mind went from calm and silent to loud and sharp, the fuzziness of a million knives picking in her brain and making her bite the inside of her cheek, the air being sucked out of her chest by how quickly it always set in when she lost focus while thinking about it at the same time. Swallowing a lump of nausea, she tried to wrench her mind to think of anything else, something distracting, but even when she grabbed the bottle and took a few long gulps, forcing herself to ignore the toxic burn as it hit her gut, it didn’t help.</p><p>Drugs didn’t help much either, no matter which ones she tried, and she’d tried them all. The only one that ever helped was heroin and no matter how much lien she stole she’d never been able to afford enough to fund that sort of medication, so instead she always returned to alcohol, which was reliable and easy to snatch. If it was a narcotic, it made the noise stop, and while booze didn’t give her the foggy distraction that helped the most it made her groggy and giggly enough that the voices didn’t speak words as much as they simply sounded slurry and incomprehensible.</p><p>Finishing the bottle, she callously tossed it off the edge of the cliff for it to shatter once it hit the ground, and she ignored as Trixxie watched her from behind for a few moments with the same concerned look in her eyes that people always got when her giggle-playful-girl smile slipped away even for the briefest moment, even though they should have all learned to expect it by now. It wasn’t like it was the first time, or the worst time.</p><p> </p><p>Scoffing to herself at the thought, she leant into the touch when Trixxie put her hand on her shoulder from behind and rested her forehead against the back of her head, squeezing her shoulder gently.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>“Yeah. I’m all good.”</p><p>“Bad night?”</p><p> </p><p><em> Hating </em> that question with a sickening fury, Chrystal merely shrugged, but not hard enough to dislodge Trixxie’s hand, not wanting the touch to end despite the daggers currently inside of her head that had her blinking far more often than she normally had to due to the unique blurriness in her vision, as if she was dizzy but only in certain parts of her brain. Trying the breathing exercises she’d been taught, she closed her eyes as she took in air evenly and worked on easing the thoughts and feelings away with every exhale, already knowing it wasn’t going to work.<br/>Never did. None of the <em> fucking </em>techniques worked.</p><p>Not the ones she’d been taught by the professional anyway. But...</p><p>Turning her head and shoulders as much as she needed to, she slid a hand into Trixxie’s gorgeous long red hair and pulled her into a kiss, the soft warmth of her lips radiating a quiet that swept away the noise even slightly from the point of contact, spreading out fiercer when Trixxie wrapped her arms around her and pulled her closer, Chrystal pressing into every inch of contact and basking in the silence that washed over her as things accelerated and progressed, her mind completely silent and at peace with heat once she had pressed the other girl onto her back.<br/>It was better than drink, or drugs. The only thing that came close enough to it was pain, and apart from training she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do...that, anymore, no matter how well the burns on her arms and wrists used to heal from her aura. While she’d known razors would have been more effective, according to other people like her she’d met anyway, it had always been fire and burning that drew her.</p><p>According to her therapist, it wasn’t a surprising compulsion, considering…</p><p>Considering.</p><p> </p><p>But now she had fighting and training, sparks of silence whenever she got hit or had to spit out a mouthful of blood despite the anger at improving too slowly for her liking. Hating the thought that Brex kept putting into her head that maybe she was letting herself get hit on purpose, attacking slower on purpose. Wanting to lose on purpose.</p><p>It wasn’t a thought she enjoyed.</p><p>And it wasn’t a theory she could dismiss out of hand.</p><p>So pain worked. Punishment worked.</p><p> </p><p>But <em> nothing </em> worked like this did, sitting up only long enough to pull her shirt back off and press back down on the other girl, being far stronger due to Trixxie being a civilian without an awakened aura, and far more aggressive due to the fact that while Trixxie <em> wanted </em> this she instead <em> needed </em> it. And her partners almost never denied her.<br/>Who would? She knew she was pretty. And she knew her reputation was that she was apparently great at it.</p><p>Which most teenagers would simply find nice and ego-boosting. But Chrystal also found it <em> useful. </em>And she didn’t ever let herself think about what that might say about her.</p><p>Seeming to sense something in her, Trixxie pushed back and gave just as much as she was getting, the silence washing through Chrystal’s mind and body enough to put her into the trance of mental numbness she craved while her body was also burning with heat and action, every inch of her skin alive and dominating her senses.</p><p> </p><p>Just what she always needed.</p><p> </p><p>It was either this or the cliff.</p><p>And unless Beacon saved her by taking her away from here, one night the cliff was going to end up winning.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As Chrystal knelt panting in the middle of the sparring arena, her blades on the ground just in front of her from where she’d dropped them in her exhaustion, she was watched quietly and calmly from the observation deck that the professors used to watch matches and keep detailed notes, able to keep the student’s reports on a terminal in front of them to scan their profiles while also keeping an eye on aura levels.<br/>With the entrance exam split into several different stages to test aptitude and capability, the final combat stage was often considered the most difficult, with the student to face off in a sparring match with whichever professor had volunteered to oversee that stage of the exam for that day. After two hours of showing skill in mobility, their knowledge of basic theory, and facing down with a Grimm, to then be put into a sparring arena with an experienced Huntsman was gruelling, and more a test of persistence and determination than it was a test of skill.</p><p>As Chrystal rested, sweat dripping down her skin as her aura crackled and healed her sore and aching muscles, Professor Firenei hopped off the arena floor to let her rest before heading up to the observation box to speak with Ozpin and Glynda, who had been watching the final stage with scrutinising eyes, each of the observing professors beforehand having confirmed Chrystal’s success at every prior stage of the entrance exam so far.</p><p>While Ozpin merely kept his eyes on the girl, who was gratefully accepting a bottle of water and being shown to the showers by one of the assistant coordinators, Glynda was frowning in concern as she tapped her fingers on the edge of her tablet, Chrystal’s transcripts up on her screen as Lianna entered and closed the door behind her.</p><p>“Well?” Lianna grabbed her own towel, placing her sword/rifle combination on a nearby table as she wiped her own sweat off.</p><p>“We can’t accept her, Oz.” Glynda said with a degree of conviction as she shook her head, rereading Chrystal’s transcripts over and over again.</p><p>“Why do you say that, Glynda?”</p><p> </p><p>Placing her tablet down and sliding it over as if it were obvious, Glynda gestured to it and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. Having already read her transcripts and profile, Ozpin glanced at it again and scanned the sections that Glynda had kept on-screen as the reason for her decision. Compared to a lot of potential students, Chrystal’s particular report had come with a few attached sections that other student’s rarely did, such as not only a psych report from a well credited psychiatrist but also a criminal record.</p><p>“She’ll get herself killed, Ozpin.” Glynda said simply, tutting her tongue as she glanced down at the tablet again herself, though she was unable to read any of the words from the distance. But she had a fair chunk of it memorised.</p><p>“Perhaps, with how she currently is, but she can be guided. We’ve had students with her particular hindrances, before.”</p><p>Hmmphing in disagreement, Glynda tapped her fingernails on the desk as she looked to Lianna, who was refilling her own bottle of water from a nearby tap. “Lianna?”</p><p>“Take her.”</p><p> </p><p>She said it just as simply and firmly as Glynda had insisted Chrystal be rejected, and it had both Ozpin and Glynda reacting in a degree of surprise. Lianna Firenei was a firm huntress and professor, with high and very specific standards developed by a very harsh career as an active huntress before she had retired to become a professor at Ozpin’s request. She was normally the one to recommend students be rejected or at the very least put through further examination.</p><p>“Are you sure that’s the wisest decision?” Glynda asked slowly and curiously, surprised again when Lianna briskly turned to the main screen in front of them and brought up Chrystal’s transcripts, flicking a finger along the touch screen to bring up her psych report and criminal record.</p><p>“What do you two see?”</p><p>“Severe, <em> severe </em>risk.” Glynda said in exasperation, with Lianna using her own proof as if it said something entirely different, meanwhile Ozpin sat back in his chair curiously, unsure of Lianna’s reasoning.</p><p>“Me too. But not the same ones as you.” Lianna sighed, crossing her arms and leaning back on the counter behind them, looking at the screen. “The girl’s never going to stop, even if we reject her. She’s driven to act. No matter what the act <em> is. </em>”</p><p>“That’s exactly the problem. No discipline, no restraint, and if her psychiatrist is right she’ll actively have the opposite of self-preservation in the field.” Glynda raised her voice slightly in frustration as she stared at Lianna, who met her gaze calmly.</p><p>“Want someone like that to have no guidance, morals, or rules either?” Lianna raised her eyebrows and asked without any particular inflection, gesturing again to the psych report and the criminal record on screen. “She’s one of the best fighters we’ve tested this week, and according to Peter her instincts are impeccable. Her Semblance isn't just physical, it's in her head. Instinct doesn't just guide her, it <em>controls </em>her.”</p><p> </p><p>At that, Ozpin nodded as he began to understand Lianna’s point, templing his fingers in front of his chin and humming as he contemplated it, sitting back in his chair. People like Chrystal, with her particular damage and impulses, would never be still. They always had to be doing <em> something, </em>both for the purpose but also for the distraction. If left aimless, they were dangerous, especially when they were as talented as Chrystal Wasara and leaned in the sort of direction she was apparently inclined to go towards, if her criminal record was any indication.</p><p>“If she is not guided, she would inevitably fall into a darker path. Is that what you are suggesting, Lianna?” He asked quietly and thoughtfully, considering her position. Lianna nodded, her face falling slightly as her eyes moved from Chrystal’s criminal record to her psych profile.</p><p>Meanwhile Glynda blanched at the apparent motivation to accept her, sitting up straighter and looking between her two colleagues and friends.<br/>“‘If she’s not with us she’s against us.’, is that really the position you’re both taking?”</p><p>While Ozpin was still in thought, Lianna nodded without any shame or restraint at the position, stepping back and leaning against the counter again, resting her hands on it for support and pursing her lips slightly as she continued to think about it. With a bit more refinement, and if the clear signs of her damage could be healed and trained out of her to improve her offense, Chrystal could be an incredible fighter.</p><p>If Lianna hadn’t pulled the girl into exhausting her own aura from the strain of trying to hit her, she would never have gotten through the girl’s Semblance. Whilever she was at her best, in the middle of the moment, Chrystal Wasara was <em> untouchable </em>. But she didn’t want to be.</p><p>Sadly, Ozpin was right. They’d dealt with huntsmen and huntresses like her before.<br/>A deathwish.</p><p>“She knows about herself, Glynda.” Lianna shook her head in a degree of sadness, before looking at her friend again. “There’s nothing on her report she isn’t already aware of about herself. We <em>have</em> to take her. During her theory examination and talking with Barty, he asked her why she wanted to attend Beacon, the standard question. Did he tell you her answer?”</p><p>“I haven’t spoken to him yet. Damned fool hasn’t been keeping up on his reports from who he’s been assessing.” Glynda grumbled for a moment, before acknowledging the question itself and frowning in curiosity. “What did she say?”</p><p>“Apparently she simply shrugged and said<em> ‘Where else would I go?’</em>” Lianna sighed, crossing her arms over her chest.</p><p> </p><p>All three of them glanced up at her psych profile again, their eyes scanning and flicking over different sections of it, each of them prioritising different parts and aspects before eventually all looking to the final paragraph, diagnosing her with severe suicidal idealisation and self-destructive and self-sabotaging tendencies.</p><p>Without looking away from it, Ozpin nodded slowly.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll take her.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Sitting down at the bar in the busy club, Chrystal sighed and rolled her shoulders to try and ease the soreness from the day of classes and training. Three months into her first semester she still wasn’t entirely used to how relentless and intense it was compared to Pharos, though the combat training had nothing on how hard Brex had pushed her and punished her. But the soreness was more from sitting in the same position for hours during classes, when she was a person always driven to move.</p><p>Not that the classes weren’t interesting. They were. But they just weren’t her forte, much to the frustration of one of her two new teammates, Kylar. She still wasn’t entirely sure what to think of the two people she now had to share a room with, and sharing a room with Shina permanently now was a bit of a strange experience, but not an unwelcome one considering their rooms had been right next to each other back home.</p><p>But the constant company of her two new companions still made her uncomfortable, <em> especially </em>the girl who could see and hear everything with a level of intuition that made her feel like she was being peeled apart and exposed like an open wound with the scab sliced away. It also didn’t help that Tacita seemed incapable of keeping her mouth shut about anything concerning she picked up with her Semblance. It was three months, and Chrystal was nauseous at how the girl looked at her whenever Chrystal felt one of her waves coming on and had to slip away.</p><p> </p><p>So, it had led to Chrystal spending as little time in her dorm as possible, either slaughtering herself at the gym training and then wandering the streets of Vale once the gym closed for the night. Poking her nose into bar after bar over a series of nights, looking for one of her preferences, another student with the same habits had recommended a certain club in the seedier sections of the city, and she’d fallen in love instantly. Though this was only her third time here, she closed her eyes and felt the comforting ebb and pulse of the music from the dancefloor going through her, taking in a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. Despite still being underage, not yet eighteen, getting inside had been easy enough. Being in line with her jacket unzipped slightly more than was modest, batting her eyelashes, and she was in.</p><p>It was always so easy, and it was the same anywhere she went.</p><p>The cute girl working the bar eventually got to her, the cuter one out of the pair of twins that apparently worked the bar most nights, and she gave a friendly smile.</p><p>“Vodka and cola.”</p><p>“Ice?”</p><p>“God yes.”</p><p>“You got it, cutie.” The girl gave Chrystal a mischievous smile as she poured the drink, but it wasn’t so much <em> flirtatious </em>as much as it was just playful, and Chrystal’s smile warmed in response as she took it and slid the lien over the counter.</p><p>“You’ve been here a few times lately, must be a new student. What’s your name, hon?”</p><p>“Chrystal. But call me Chrysalis.”</p><p>“Cool. Nice nickname, building off your real one. I’m Melanie.” The girl gave her another smile and leant on the bar, no other customers currently grabbing her attention so she felt as if she was free to talk. “Before you ask, my sister’s name is Miltia.”</p><p>Nodding in amusement, as that had been what she was about to ask, Chrystal took a deep gulp of her drink and let out a breath of satisfied approval at the quality of the alcohol, closing her eyes at the burn while Melanie simply raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Not a first timer then, most new students are. Wanting to grow up and break out of their shells, always a fun thing to watch as they try not to throw up.” </p><p> </p><p>Melanie smirked, having to slip away for a moment to serve a rather tipsy couple who came up to the counter, and giving Chrystal time to grin and look over her shoulder at the dancefloor, taking in the crowd of people. They were a mix match of civilians, students, and clearly some shadier members of the city underworld, which piqued Chrystal’s interest a little bit. Caelitum had its fair share of criminals, like most small cities began to have, but there hadn’t been any particular gangs or criminal rings, and the concept had always interested her. Not in wanting to join, but merely in what she could admit was a romanticized view of that sort of world and lifestyle. Closing her eyes to enjoy the music yet again, she finished her drink and gave a smile in thanks to a still busy Melanie before standing and making her way over to dance, letting her eyes flutter closed regularly as she gave into it<br/>Dancing was the third thing that gave her any degree of silence, though it was the least effective of the three, but it was the weekend tomorrow so she let it take her away for as long as she was able to.</p><p>Boys, girls, students, adults, she wasn’t picky who she danced with, allowing the music to take her away, but good things are never to last as eventually someone’s hand wandered where it shouldn’t and had her eyes click open and her aura flare in anger, her enhanced reflexes easily allowing her to snatch the wrist and turn to face the man who had dared, seeing him as one of the members of the local gang. When her aura audibly and visibly flashed, a tremor went through the crowd as they realised something had happened and everyone backed away to give space, knowing better than to stay close to an angry huntress.</p><p> </p><p>Bending his wrist to hold him in place, Chrystal raised her eyebrows at the man, who met her stare with a smug and playful look.</p><p>“Not a bad grip there.”</p><p>“Not a fan of yours.” Chrystal snarled, before maybe going a bit too far and jarring his wrist in her grip, the joint snapping loudly and painfully as she kicked him in the gut to send him sprawling away.</p><p> </p><p>Yelping in pain, the man caught the attention of some of his cohorts nearby, who seemed to be accustomed to dealing with huntsmen and huntresses flexing their weight, and they shared glances at each other before effectively closing ranks and being tempted to cause put up a fight, causing Chrystal to snarl louder and slide a foot back.<br/>The man who had groped her stumbled to his feet behind the rest of his friends, nursing his broken wrist, hissing out.</p><p>“You’re going to pay for that one, <em> bitch. </em>”</p><p>But a new voice cut in. “No, she won’t.”</p><p> </p><p>A great weight smashed the man over the back of the head with a sickening crunch and he dropped, unconscious and <em> severely </em>hurt, and the other men turned to look at what had happened to see a tall man in a jacketless suit and a neatly trimmed beard straighten his tie with a fire extinguisher in his right hand. He gestured to the pervert.</p><p>“Get that trash out of here. Make an <em>example </em>once you're outside. We toe some specific lines, but we <em> don’t </em>pull that disgusting shit. Next one of you to cross that line, I’ll give into the stereotype and chuck you into the bay with cement shoes. Got it?”</p><p> </p><p>None of the other men spoke a word, silence in the club except for the music still playing over the speakers as the man took a few steps towards the still battle-ready Chrystal and put the fire extinguisher down placatingly, visibly disarming himself. He shook his head in regretful disgust.</p><p>“I’m sorry about that, truly. Chrysalis, right?”</p><p>“That’s me. You’re the boss?”</p><p>“Name’s Junior. I can’t apologise enough for that shit. We don’t tolerate it.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a few moments as she considered the guilty and regret filled look on his face, and the fact he seemed genuine while still coming across as confident, Chrystal slowly slid out of her combat position and crossed her arms over her chest.</p><p>“Not the first time.”</p><p>“If I have it my way, it’ll be the last in my club.” Junior shot a look over his shoulder to glare with severe punishing eyes at his gang, who all flinched and then decided they needed to find better and important things to do.</p><p>“Right…” Chrystal dragged out the word, making it clear she didn’t buy it. It was a dance club. That’s what happened here.</p><p> </p><p>“If you want to stick around, drinks are on the house. Not a hesitation in my mind.”</p><p>Pausing for a few moments as she considered it, Chrystal zipped her jacket up all the way and nodded, giving the man a chance. “Thanks. Mind pouring my first one?”</p><p>“No problem.” Junior gave a thankful smile at the chance he was being given, and made his way over to the bar, Chrystal following behind him and sitting back down at the stool she had vacated.</p><p> </p><p>Tapping her fingers on the counter in stress, Chrystal hissed out a breath as she shook her head, her good mood and calm mind thoroughly shattered as she felt the needles on the edge of her mind begin to poke and prod and scratch. Melanie gave her an insanely apologetic and fiercely protective look as she backed away to let Junior take over that section of the bar, and Junior poured Chrystal her drink and slid it to her.</p><p>“Thanks.</p><p>Chrystal simply threw the drink back in a single go and put the empty glass down on the counter, sighing in frustration and anger. Pausing for a moment and glancing down at the girl’s empty glass, Junior didn’t hesitate to pour her another one.</p><p>“I never thought one of my boys would pull that shit.”</p><p>“Should have let me educate them why they shouldn’t.”</p><p>“Well, I only just got my club fixed up from the last time a new huntress in town decided to whale on my men.” Junior snorted and shook his head, but it piqued Chrystal’s interest.</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“Didn’t catch her name. Long wild blonde hair. Tall. Purple eyes that changed to red. Large…” Junior cut himself off and turned it into a cough, but Chrystal already knew who he was talking about and raised a playfully judgemental eyebrow.</p><p>“I know her. Name’s Yang. She’s in my year. She is pretty tough, yeah.”</p><p>Pausing, Junior passed Chrystal her next drink and tilted his head. “Was a bit more than pretty tough when she came through. You two about even?”</p><p>“Eh.” Chrystal shrugged casually as she took a sip. “We’ve been pitted against each other in sparring five times. She’s lost four of them.”</p><p> </p><p>Silent at the thought, Junior straightened up and gave a proper look at the girl at his bar. She was tough, took no bullshit, wasn’t as uppity as a lot of other students that came through, had a wild streak, and didn’t come across as any sort of angel. There was another new girl that was pretty similar, who’d taken up Junior’s offer for always recruiting new talent, so he decided to offer it again.</p><p>“This may be a bit bold, but I’m always looking for new muscle, and you’re clearly tougher than the usual...prospects.”</p><p>“I...huh.” Chrystal blinked in surprise, sitting up slightly as she thought about it. “I mean, I’m not much of a brawler.”</p><p>“Got other talents for the sort of work I'm sure you've guessed my people do, then?”</p><p>Hesitating, Chrystal sucked in a breath before letting it out slowly. In truth, she did, and she knew she did. And she found it fun. Frankly her criminal record made her smile more than it made her feel any degree of guilt for it. So, it was a tempting offer, but it was the wrong sort of night for him to ask it, so she chuckled and shook her head. “I’m not about to advertise to the man whose boy just...tried something. You know?”</p><p>“Fair, fair.” Nodding in complete understanding, Junior leaned on the bar and gave her a gentle and friendly look. “Well if you’re ever looking for a bit of work, there’s always something to punch, pinch, or protect.”</p><p> </p><p>The thought of jobs stealing things had Chrystal blink and catch her breath again, the prospect hitting her and a thousand thoughts and ideas filling her mind, but she knew almost none of them were her actual thoughts and most of them were the bad parts of her mind that relished in her making terrible decisions just for the temporary distraction.<br/>Before she could give her answer, someone or something clearly caught Junior’s attention as the man looked over Chrystal’s shoulder towards the door and visibly brightened up, giving a smile at someone entering.</p><p>“There’s one of my new people now, she’s new in town as well so I reckon she’s in your year. She’s been doing some pinching jobs for me.”</p><p> </p><p>As the new girl skipped up to the counter and plopped herself down next to Chrystal, raising her finger in a way that Junior clearly recognised as he poured her a drink, he gestured between the two girls.</p><p>“Chrystal, Cypher, you two know each other?”</p><p> </p><p>The two girls glanced over at each other, and instantly froze, blinking. Chrystal’s breath caught in her throat, while a silent gasp came out of Cypher’s as they looked at each other, a massive smile breaking out on Cypher’s lips that had Chrystal smile as well.</p><p>“...hi. Port’s class, right? Team CULD?”</p><p>Cypher grinned and waved, before almost making some signs with her fingers and hesitating, giving Chrystal an optimistic and questioning look. Blinking in confusion, Chrystal looked to Junior just as the man handed Cypher her drink. He gave a small helpless smile.</p><p>“The girl can’t talk. It’s sign language, guesswork, or bust.”</p><p> </p><p>“I...can’t speak sign language. I’m sorry.” Chrystal sighed apologetically, and Cypher shook her head to dismiss it, unsurprised, as she sipped her drink, not taking her eyes off of Chrystal the entire time as Chrystal finished her own drink in another gulp.</p><p>“So…” For the first time in a while, Chrystal found herself lost for words, and she found herself foolishly extending her hand. “I’m Chrystal, of team SKTC. But call me...well, I guess you can’t. Shit. Well, I’m Chrysalis. If that can…”</p><p> </p><p>Giggling silently at how flustered and lost Chrystal was, Cypher extended her hand to shake, gripping it firmly with an impossibly soft hand which Chrystal found that she didn’t want to let go of, and the universe granted her wishes as Cypher quickly finished her drink and stood, still holding Chrystal’s hand as she playfully and more than a little flirtatiously pulled her to her feet and guided her back to the again filled dancefloor, not breaking eye contact the entire time.</p><p>And Chrystal learned properly what she would later think about Yang and Blake.</p><p>That when it’s two people who are attracted to each other, there’s no such thing as <em> ‘just dancing.’ </em></p><p> </p><p>No matter what she told her in those coming months, Cypher never judged, only ever listening and comforting and sometimes enabling, and in return as Chrystal gradually learned sign-language for her Cypher told her things she’d never had it in her to tell anyone else. Things about home, and the orphanage, and the strange guilt of not having any memory of where she came from and who she might have lost.<br/>And Cypher was fast enough, maybe the only person in the city who was, to blink over and snatch Chrystal’s gun from her hand the night she almost made a final decision, then holding her as she cried. In return, Chrystal never turned Cypher away when the mute girl needed comfort, needing to feel noticed and heard and acknowledged.</p><p>Needed to be more than a <em> ‘Ghost Story’ </em>.</p><p>Together they made Vale their home, with each night of adventures and getting into trouble and never having to worry about the other one scolding them like a child and presuming to dictate how they should handle what they feel.</p><p>A year of falling for someone for the first time, someone who wasn’t exactly healthy, wasn’t exactly constructive, but was someone to love and stand by and attach to all the same. And when Cypher’s obligations as a team leader grew too stressful and intense for her to handle a relationship at the same time, they became the sort of best friends where they didn’t even really <em> need </em>to talk to know what the other one was thinking.</p><p>Side by side, in a way that even Shina couldn’t be for her.</p><p> </p><p>And then Chrystal had lost her. </p><p> </p><p>And she lost Petyr. </p><p> </p><p>And Shina left her for dead.</p><p> </p><p>She was alone on the cliff once again.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Picking up with her sharp eyes as Neo’s grip on her parasol shifted, the other girl nervously drumming her fingers on the handle of it, Chrystal’s eyes went icier as her mind quietened and she zoned in on the girl in front of her. For her own part, Neo found herself staring at a statue that hated her. It was written into every muscle in the other girl’s form, every drop of tension, and it looked as if it went far deeper than the hatred for a simple enemy in war.<br/>Of course she recognised Chrystal, <em> the untouchable girl </em> of Team SKTC. The girl Junior and his boys called Chrysalis in their part of town, and who enjoyed a top place in the rankings. But why was she <em> here? </em></p><p>And where was the rest of her team?</p><p>But she didn’t have time to think about it, because suddenly Chrystal was a blur, closing the distance fast enough Neo almost failed to bring her parasol up in time to knock away the first slash and then having to skip away from Chrystal sweeping at her legs, the girl following her own momentum as she entered the air to bring her foot down on Neo’s head, the shorter girl ducking out of the way and flipping backwards.</p><p>Staring death at Neo, Chrystal flipped her blade in her hand in slow circles, shifting her grip back and forth just so Neo had movement to be distracted by. Neo was just as Yang had described; fast, and agile.</p><p>But not fast enough.</p><p> </p><p>Closing the distance again, Chrystal refused to let up, pressuring Neo’s reflexes and agility as she refused to give the shorter girl any time to create the space she needed to formulate any strategy of her own. Eventually Chrystal got what she wanted, Neo switching to the offensive in an acrobatic and agile style similar to her own, keeping her parasol for sweeping deflections and distraction instead of attacks and instead preferring to attempt unarmed attacks with her flexible legs and momentum, but Chrystal had seen it all before and easily kept out of the way, Neo’s eyes eventually narrowing in frustration as Chrystal got an opening and brought her blade down, the form of Neo underneath her shattering into illusion.</p><p>Her mind flashing, Chrystal spun out of the way as the tip of a blade went through where the side of her neck had been barely an instant before, and her foot drove into Neo’s surprised gut, sending the girl sliding back, and when Chrystal spun her pistol up and followed up with half a dozen rapid shots Neo easily deflected them by clicking her parasol open and catching them on it as a shield, Chrystal hopping forwards and kicking upwards to swing it out of the way only for Neo’s foot to match hers and kicking it away as a deflection, a swipe from her parasol then missing as Chrystal easily twisted out of the way.</p><p>Glaring silently, Neo covered herself with an illusion again as she hopped backwards and around to create space, watching as Chrystal smashed the lingering form of her with a frustrated snarl. Narrowing her eyes as she circled her, knowing she wouldn’t be able to avoid Chrystal’s notice forever and <em> certainly </em>wouldn’t be able to escape her speed if she simply tried to run, Neo took stock of her while she had the brief chance.</p><p> </p><p>Clicking her parasol closed once again audibly, she let Chrystal shatter her when the girl responded to the noise and spun to fire shots, Neo sliding forward underneath them while her Semblance still hid her current location and thrusting up into the soft spot of Chrystal’s armour between jacket and neck, only to blink as Chrystal twisted out of the way in time for Neo’s blade to barely scratch along her, causing only the slightest shine of purple aura.</p><p>Chrystal somehow dodging her invisible attack, Neo flipped her parasol around to deflect Chrystal’s blade and then grabbed her wrist to spin her hand and force her expected gunshot to miss, but when she attempted to jam Chrystal’s wrist to force her grip to loosen and drop her weapon Chrystal merely hopped up to follow the movement with her entire body and combine it with a slash at Neo’s torso which Neo brushed aside with her parasol. But with one hand grabbing Chrystal’s wrist and her parasol caught on Chrystal’s blade, she had nowhere to go when Chrystal brought her foot down on her <em> hard </em>, her pink aura crackling as she almost went down and was forced to let go of Chrystal and leave a statue of herself behind as she bounced to her feet.</p><p> </p><p>Glaring around herself in response after shattering the illusion, looking for wherever Neo was currently hiding, Chrystal spun her gun in her hands, using the movement to feel the weight and keep notice on how much ammo she’d clearly used up and how much might be left.</p><p>Closing her eyes for a few moments to focus herself, listening to her surroundings, her alarms went off at the sound of footfalls and claws just on the edge of her hearing, but she didn’t have time to locate it properly as she spun out of the way of something her reflexes picked up, kicked Neo’s parasol to the side, and slashed directly for her throat which Neo ducked back out of the way from as she dropped to her knees in a skid for only a pace before leaping to her feet and elegantly landing from the jump using her parasol, raising an eyebrow at Chrystal as she landed.</p><p><em> ‘What is it that I did to you…Why are you doing this?’ </em> Neo wondered to herself as she took in the way the other girl was staring at her. </p><p>Watching as Chrystal clicked the side of her pistol for the mostly empty magazine to drop, replacing it with a fresh one too fast for Neo to see if there was anything special about the rounds she loaded, Neo decided not to give her the time to use them and darted back in. While Chrystal’s defenses were apparently utterly impenetrable, her attacks were almost sluggish in comparison, and now that Neo had realised that she couldn’t simply outpace and outmaneuver Chrystal like she could almost any other opponent she had to change her strategy.</p><p>But Chrystal was something that Neo had never encountered before, in all her years of fighting and dealing with Huntsmen;</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal was faster than her.</p><p> </p><p>Forced to shatter herself yet again when Chrystal almost caught her with her blade along her leg, Neo’s eyes widened and she had to flip out of the way when Chrystal had immediately fired at where she’d backed off to, despite her being invisible.</p><p>Looking around at the seemingly empty clearing, Chrystal’s mind was screaming at her with constant information as her reflexes were at their height and her instincts were at their strongest, barely conscious thought going through her as she gave into ultra-instinct and allowed her instincts and training to guide her. Neo relied too heavily on escaping with her Semblance, and she always skidded back around six paces after she used it, often flipping into a back handspring to clear the last pace of distance.</p><p>If the disturbances in the rubble were any indication, Chrystal had almost got her, and she felt a spike of satisfaction.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning again as her senses picked up approaching danger, she also picked up a brief flash of pink and brown hair vanishing into the ruins, and she snarled.</p><p>
  <b> <em>Not. A. Chance.</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>Leaping up onto the crumbled walls of the ruined buildings courtesy of the crashing ship, she didn’t just <em> keep pace </em> with Neo but she <em> gained </em> on her. <em> Easily. </em> And she could tell that Neo wasn’t particularly surprised, but also wasn’t pleased about it.</p><p>Sheathing her sword as she ran, she unloaded the magazine of normal bullets from her pistol and returned the almost full clip to her bag, instead grabbing a magazine of gravity shots and loading them without breaking stride, leaping up onto the next building and spinning her pistol up as Neo leapt and scrambled up onto her own crumbled ruin.<br/>A shot to the doorway Neo was darting through and the small burst of gravity dust had Neo wobbling on her feet just long enough for Chrystal to close the distance again, but now unarmed, and fire her pistol behind her for the burst of gravity energy to give her a boost, shoulder barging into the still stumbling Neo. Unsurprised when the girl shattered, Chrystal let the momentum roll her down onto the ground and into the rubble-filled street, surrounded by ruined buildings on every side.</p><p>But while Neo was agile, Chrystal had deduced that she wasn’t agile enough to leap up to a second story window or floor like she was, having had to scramble up just to reach the floor she’d just been on.</p><p>Skidding out of the way as Neo’s parasol stabbed through the air from behind, and swinging back with her arm, she narrowed her eyes when Neo snatched her wrist just long enough for a swipe of her parasol to bluntly scratch against her armour as Chrystal twisted out of the way in time.</p><p>Drawing her sword again, she darted in to close the distance, sweeping for Neo’s legs as a feint for her to duck low and fire at the ground just behind where Neo was sliding back, the gravity knocking her off balance for Chrystal to wrap an arm around her leg and throw her over her back, but Neo simply opened her parasol and drifted to the ground instead of being sent sprawling, a thoroughly unimpressed look on her face as she raised her eyebrow in annoyance at Chrystal’s gun, still almost fully loaded with gravity bullets.</p><p>Frowning when Chrystal’s eyes briefly flickered around the street and her senses seemed to be distracted for a short opening, Neo took advantage as she darted in and left an image of herself behind she spun around, sliding to Chrystal’s gun side where she couldn’t defend with her sword and thrusting for her while she was still invisible, and Chrystal was distracted for just long enough that the blade of Neo’s parasol slid into her armour and pierced her aura even as she twisted out of the way at the last moment to avoid the worst of the damage, purple aura sparking concerningly as Chrystal dropped her gun to grip Neo’s still extended arm in hers, spinning her off balance and trapping her parasol closed so she couldn’t extend it to prevent herself being spun off balance and dropped to the ground, Chrystal’s blade coming down even as the impact knocked the breath out of Neo’s lungs. Catching the blade with her free hand, her pink aura crackling, Neo wrapped her legs around Chrystal’s neck and twisted them so she would be in the dominant grappling position.</p><p> </p><p>Snatching up her pistol as they were rolled, Chrystal fired a shot at the ground so the momentum continued and they were sent sprawling properly, both of them kicking to their feet and landing, panting and beaten up. A few solid hits to Chrystal’s aura from someone whose aim was as lethally potent as Neo’s had her aura sparking and low, while Neo’s overuse of her Semblance combined with the impressive hits that Chrystal had gotten in having her own sparking.<br/>Both of them were covered in dust and dirt, Neo’s normally immaculate hair was a knotted and filthy mess, and Chrystal’s armour was torn with holes large enough that her undershirt had been ripped slightly and skin was visible.</p><p>Taking only a few moments to pant and recover, they went for each other again, Neo skidding to the defensive immediately to throw Chrystal off balance by deflecting her blade only to feel the barrel of a pistol press against her gut, and she shattered herself just as Chrystal pulled the trigger, the gravity wave rattling the rubble and sending the two of them off-balance, Chrystal recovering instantly while Neo hit her back against a collapsed building and silently gasped.</p><p>Without a chance to recover, Neo received a shot right in the gut and the force of the gravity dust broke the severely weakened wall behind her and sent her rolling through the collapsed rubble of what had once been a simple single-story shop, but was not just jagged foundation and broken furniture and shelves. Kicking to her feet, Neo looked down at her sparking aura before sprinting forward and hopping up onto the broken counter, then onto the column of the foundation and leaving a statue behind so she was invisible as she came down, anticipating Chrystal’s dodge as she spun so her foot caught Chrystal in the back of the knee just hard enough to damage aura, even though she knew it wouldn’t do anything to the girl’s stance or balance.</p><p>Chrystal flipped backwards through the window of the building behind her and hopped back a few paces, trying to bring Neo back into an open space where she had an advantage, and Neo obliged, the fight slowly deteriorating into a grinding fight at an inhumanly quick speed as hits were deflected and redirected, neither of them landing enough on the other to turn the tide. Neo found Chrystal’s reflexes increasingly infuriating and jaw-droppingly impressive, meanwhile Chrystal was noticing as Neo learned her patterns and grew smarter with her illusions, the other girl clearly too clever for Chrystal to underestimate safely.</p><p>To outside observers, the fight would have been lightning fast, almost impossible to keep up with unless you were accustomed to observing combat, as the pair moved from rubble to ruin to broken street, ending up chasing each other down one of the few streets with buildings still relatively intact, a handful still being above three stories tall, but those buildings could have been skyscrapers compared to the rubble and ruin surrounding them.</p><p>A kick from Chrystal right onto her parasol had Neo skid back a pace before her counter slipped under Chrystal’s extended arm, letting Neo spin the girl off-stance so she couldn’t get another attack in, buying Neo another moment to try and consider her options, just for Chrystal to halt in her movement and pull, jarring the momentum of the movement just enough Neo stumbled mid-spin and caught the butt of Chrystal’s gun to the side of her head, but Chrystal paid for the dirty attack when Neo clicked her parasol open with it trapped underneath Chrystal’s arm to throw her off balance, before immediately clicking it closed and giving a series of quick thrusts, one of them finding purchase and scratching along Chrystal’s ribs, ripping another tear in her armour.</p><p> </p><p>Bouncing back, Neo watched as Chrystal seemed briefly distracted again, before the other girl’s face twitched in reaction to something and her pistol spun up and fired. Neo went to deflect but the round went over her shoulder. Spinning on her foot, she watched as the beowulf that had been prowling through the ruins and sneaking up on them dusted, and when another of its pack emerged from where they’d been creeping along Neo cleanly thrust through it with the tip of her parasol, before feeling ice at her stupidity for giving Chrystal an opening, but when she turned on her heel Chrystal openly had her back to her as she sliced through her own foe.</p><p>Their battle through the streets, fueled with anger and frustration and increasing amounts of desperation to survive, had radiated out in constant waves like lit matches in pitch darkness for the Grimm to hunt down and go for.</p><p>Slicing through the beowulf, Chrystal grimaced in frustration at her carelessness, immediately reacting as more arrived. Noting the lack of any danger from behind her as her Semblance constantly chimed in, she looked over her shoulder at Neo, watching as the girl easily dusted Grimm. The mute girl looked over her own shoulder, and the pair gave each other a look of silent compromise before turning their backs to each other again as they had larger problems to deal with. The hordes of Grimm prowling the entire city were unbelievably numerous in number and savage in their ferocity, seeming to come in a constant stream now that a few had caught their scent, and the bullets in Chrystal’s gun began to run low. Swearing in frustration as a sabyr took her blade to the face and she kicked the dusting corpse away, she turned on her feet when she heard impact and watched as Neo took a swipe of claws to the chest and her pink aura crackled brightly enough and loud enough it was clearly on the brink of shattering.</p><p>Considering her options for a few moments, glancing around at the sheer number around them that didn’t seem to be letting up, she felt the two parts of herself get into a screaming match as she holstered her pistol and pulled the almost unconscious Neo to her feet, kicking the girl’s parasol up into her hand and passing it to her, before having to kick a beowulf in the face to deter it from taking a swipe at them both. The two of them glanced at each other for a brief moment, the two of them on the edge of their auras shattering entirely, exhausted and filthy from their own drawn out fight.</p><p>It was run or die, and neither of them were getting away without help from the other. And they both knew it.</p><p>When the next brief opening appeared, Chrystal pointed with her blade towards one of the three story buildings.</p><p> </p><p>“I can get us up to the third story. We just have to get closer somehow.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding, Neo gestured between the two of them and then pointed at herself in emphasis, before blinking and making her eyes change colours. Chrystal nodded back in understanding and extended her hand.</p><p>“On your signal then, I guess…”</p><p>Taking in a few rapid breaths as she and Chrystal cleared another opening, Chrystal taking another slash across the chest behind her with her aura cracking, Neo’s two halves were fighting just as much as Chrystal’s were, and she scrunched up her face in defeated frustration before kicking a sabyr away and grabbing Chrystal’s hand. Giving it a squeeze to signal as she forced her Semblance and left an image of both of them behind, Chrystal immediately leaped over the Grimm directly surrounding them in one bound, pulling Neo with her, as the Grimm were distracted by the illusions left behind.</p><p>Bouncing on her feet twice as she landed, Chrystal sheathed her blade and leapt up again, grabbing onto the ledge of the third floor, having to compensate for the extra weight despite how light Neo was, and then swinging Neo up before pulling herself up as well, rolling onto her back panting as Neo did the same thing, slumping down into a sitting position propped up against a nearby wall, her parasol dropping over her lap as she took in deep heaving breaths and her aura finally failing from the final use of her Semblance while Chrystal’s did the same thing at the final great exertion.</p><p>Slowly sitting up, Chrystal looked out of the broken hole in the otherwise remarkably intact room and looked out over the swarm of Grimm below. While they’d currently lost track of them, they’d be lingering in the area in horde-size numbers for hours, and when she glanced up at the sky she noted the sun moving into late-afternoon.<br/>Sighing in resignation, she turned to an equally exhausted and beaten Neo, who was looking at her patiently waiting for her observations, though she didn’t have much choice in the matter if the exhausted jelly in her legs was any indication.</p><p>“...we’re stuck here for the night.” </p><p>Chrystal said it with an amused chuckle, shaking her head and looking away in dark amusement for a few moments before it slowly turned into a proper laugh, the circumstances amazing to her in the most awful and painful way.</p><p>Looking across at her enemy, the woman that less than twenty minutes ago she’d been trying to kill with her entire being, she smirked as Neo was silently laughing in the same drained and dark amusement.</p><p> </p><p>Propping herself up against the opposite wall, Chrystal glanced around at what might be available to them as any sort of resources, and nodded in satisfaction at the broken wooden furniture for a fire. Glancing back to Neo for a moment, she shakily stood and made her way over to a chair, giving the weakened wood a sharp kick to snap off the legs and begin to toss them over to where they were clearly setting up a makeshift camp. Raising her eyebrows at Neo in judgemental expectation, she was satisfied when Neo narrowed her eyes but still relented, starting to set the wood up into the proper position for a fire as Chrystal tossed her the pieces she broke off, before returning with a handful of couch stuffing to use as kindling.</p><p> </p><p>“Might as well get comfortable. We’ll be putting up with each other for a while.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In almost any story I write, Chrystal is one of my favourites, no matter where I put her.<br/>Also if my description of her bi-polar episodes read funny, I'm basing them off of my own, so that's the best reference I've got.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Perceptions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As Kylar spends the afternoon hours in the library, Tacita struggles to wake up from something new to her that she can't control. With each of them to wake up, the truth about the Maidens has to be explained yet again, and yet Chrystal is forced to be in the dark while she is still so far away. Back in the ruins of Beacon, the trapped Chrystal and Neo have nowhere to go, so instead are forced to talk out a temporary truce.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As Tesse changed the bandages on Shina’s damaged arms, she looked over her shoulder in alarm when Tacita’s aura sparked yet again, frowning in confused concern. It had been going off at random intervals, as if it was recharging and then breaking over and over again, but that implied it was in use or taking damage.<br/>But safe in the warm peace of the Goroesi estate, there was no danger around, and her physical injuries had almost completely healed.</p><p>Stepping over to the sleeping girl and worriedly running fingers through her hair softly, Tesse sighed and leaned down to press a soft kiss to her forehead, watching as her aura ever so faintly rippled in response even to that small bit of physical contact. It didn’t make any sense, but until Tacita woke up there was no possible way of getting an explanation.<br/>She had no way of knowing that Tacita was watching her do it, sitting on the edge of Shina’s bed increasingly desperate as the hours went by.</p><p>Walking over to where Tesse was fussing over her sleeping body, Tacita didn’t bother to try and speak or call out, she’d figured out by this point that there was no way to communicate, or interact with the real world at all.</p><p>But she still tried to reach out, to place a hand on Tesse’s shoulder to get her attention, but her hand passed straight through. When Tesse left the room, Tacita followed, heading back to the library where she’d been silently sitting with Kylar while he’d been reading, able to pick up how worried he was about her but having no way to reach him.</p><p>The library was far enough away that the world around her distorted and crackled, reaching the end of what her Semblance was able to pick up on, and the drain on her aura was strong, but she persevered anyway.</p><p>He’d been reading through a massive pile of books since before lunch, and it was now mid-afternoon. A notebook was filled with annotations and notes that he’d been jotting down as he read, studying the philosophies of how Semblances worked, and she’d been able to read along with him by looking over his shoulder. It had certainly been a way to pass the time until she figured out a way to wake up.</p><p>A desperate need to escape her own mind after the pressure Emerald had put onto it had certainly had...fascinating results, even if she couldn’t figure out a way to snap out of it and return to her body. Not the most convenient timing to evolve.<br/>The further away she went from her body, stretching towards the edges of what her Semblance could detect, the more severe the aura drain and the more distorted reality became around her, and she’d tried just flat-out draining her aura dry in order to wake up but all that had happened was she’d been drawn back towards her minimum range again as if a leash was around her torso.</p><p>But her body was sleeping and recovering, so it meant she had plenty of free time to think and mull over everything they’d been finding out, having sat down with Kylar to listen to Tesse explain everything that she was willing to share until Logan brought Chrystal home. Too many new questions to ask, but enough new details that she was able to distract herself with thoughts while she also tried to figure out how to get out of her current situation.</p><p>It made sense to her that her awareness would continue even while she was asleep. All people still feel and hear things while they’re asleep, so her Semblance shouldn’t be any different. She’d just never dedicated any thought as to what happened to the information in the meantime, but now she apparently had an answer, with it clearly still being accessible.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, she tried to rest her forehead on his shoulder, but she knew she’d just go straight through him. It was hardly the first time she’d tried to reach out in the past...thirty hours. But it felt good to keep trying, yet more and more painful to keep failing.</p><p>She noticed as Kylar was reading the same paragraph over and over again, his eyes far away, and her face softened.</p><p>“We’ll figure this out, love. Once we’re all back together. Once I’m...up.” </p><p>Biting the inside of her cheek, she looked off into the fireplace that she couldn’t feel the heat from and closed her eyes, her hearing still picking out every bit of movement and sound in the building. Whether it be sight or sound, it was always constant. It made waking hours agony, no matter how much she tried to restrain it. Unless she turned it off entirely, but that took an agonising amount of effort to initially do as well. And now, despite being asleep, she was still trapped in the lights and noise, and it was exhausting, but there weren’t exactly any options. All she remembered was how badly she’d wanted to escape the pressure Emerald was surrounding her with. Sights and sounds that flicked by too fast to interpret. It had been a total overload, and she’d needed an out.</p><p>Then she’d hit the hard surface of the street and been knocked out, and...here she was.</p><p>Watching, listening, and no way to shut it out.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting outside the outpost where her body was unconscious, unable to get the destruction around her out of her head, no way of closing it out. It had been a long night.<br/>Every time she closed her eyes, it was back.</p><p>“I’ve never been good at admitting when I’m scared. Especially not to you, love.” Speaking quietly to a boy she knew couldn’t hear her, she sat down on the arm of the nearest armchair and crossed her arms over her chest. “But...how are we supposed to just move on? And we’re supposed to just head off to Mistral now? Into the wilderness, chasing rumours?”</p><p>Chuckling in amusement at her own words, she gave Kylar an invisible grin. “Though...I guess chasing rumours is sort of par for the course at this point. And last time Ozpin wanted us to <em> stop </em>, now we find out he was going to ask us to actually do it.”</p><p>The thought of the headmaster being dead put a certain weight in her chest that she’d been coming to terms with over the past hours, but she’d prepared herself for the reality that most of their friends and the people they’d known were dead. Unlike Kylar, she’d seen the bodies being brought in, and the wounded in the tents who never made it. Able to look over Logan’s shoulder as the casualty list was updated.</p><p>Their friends' names being crossed off one by one. Eventually it had turned into a numbness, the numbness of coming to just expect the list to keep growing longer. The loss of Team BRGT had torn chunks out of her, and she’d discovered that when she cried in this form her physical body cried as well. Then Team CULD, which had been just as bad. Angel of Team LAVA had lived, but her body had been almost entirely scorched.</p><p>When the call had come in about Petyr, called in by Zav, she’d almost shut down. But he was the only one of Team SPKZ. By that point, Shina had dropped off Yang with Blake.</p><p> </p><p>Minute after minute, more and more dead or wounded.</p><p> </p><p>Half an hour after the silver flash (which she hadn’t understood at the time but Tesse had since informed Kylar, and unknowingly Tacita, about the phenomenon of the silver-eyes)...Shina had been brought in by Team LAVA.</p><p>And Chrystal had never arrived. Eventually the outpost had been forced to pull back even further out of the city, the Grimm were simply too numerous, and they took the opening of the dragon being dealt with to start mass-evacuating out of the city. That had included the three wounded members of SKTC.</p><p>Tacita had looked out over the city before hopping up onto the airjet alongside her physical body, and watched as she left her friend behind somewhere in the rubble.</p><p> </p><p>All she’d wanted was to escape the pressure Emerald put on her.</p><p>What she’d got was hell.</p><p>Her preference would have been unconsciousness.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all gone, isn’t it.” She spoke quietly, despite knowing she didn’t really need to bother. It wasn’t as if she was actually making any noise. “We don’t have anything left except doing what Ozpin wanted us to do. It’s a cause, a purpose now that we’ve lost ours. Even if one based on a fairytale.”</p><p>Standing, she walked over to a world map hanging on the wall and tilted her head at it, trying to distract herself from her own exhaustion as her eyes flicked between all the different places they’d likely be heading to. Their first major stop would be Rowena’s hometown, but they’d be going on foot through the mainland and it would take months even just to pass into Mistral territory.</p><p>And winter was two months away.</p><p>If they all agreed and left, they’d have to leave as soon as possible, and a trip like that would require a lot of preparations. They all had healing and repairs and recovery to do.</p><p>Looking around herself dejectedly before glancing at where Kylar was still reading, she put her hands into the pockets of the comfortable pants she’d been dressed in for bed and wandered out of the library and back to the room she was asleep in, sitting on the edge of her own bed and looking down at her own sleeping body.</p><p> </p><p>It was a very, very strange experience.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Shina was heartachingly scary to look at, even though it was clear he’d be waking up soon, likely in only a couple of hours. How he’d be feeling and what he’d be like when that happened was still up in the air. The tendrils had almost receded entirely, but the dark rings persisted around the gold in his eyes for now. The influence of his Semblance was clearly lingering in his system, but not physically, since his aura had recharged fully.<br/>Personally, she just wanted to sleep. Not that she was tired, since she’d technically been asleep for over thirty hours, but she was mentally drained and needed the rest. Constant awareness of everything for so long couldn’t be healthy, and it was starting to weigh on her and overload her mind.<br/>But, that gave her an idea, another in a long line of different things she’d tried out during the past hours to try and snap out of what was happening.</p><p>The one thing she hadn’t tried, was give up. Was just simply give up and shut down.</p><p>So it was worth a try.</p><p> </p><p>Laying down on the bed next to herself, again a very strange experience, and closing her eyes, she embraced the thought of having had enough, of being tired, of wanting it all to stop so she could rest. Shuffling in her position, she dozed off almost instantly, but not before she felt every sensation around her ripple and pulse.</p><p>The next time she opened her eyes, and she had no way of knowing how much later it was, only that the sun was now set, the first thing she became aware of was how sore she was, the skin of her torso felt tender and tight and it stung to even breathe. Looking around the room, her breathing was laboured, even just the weight of the blanket making it difficult due to how weak the freshly healed muscles throughout her chest currently were.<br/>Letting out a breath of relief, clearly back in her actual body, she grimaced at the throbs of pain still going through her as her aura was still finishing up the last of the work to do.</p><p>Shifting in her position and pushing herself up, she didn’t bother checking what was hurting, she was more than aware of her scar, and instead she pushed the blankets from herself and swung her legs over the side of the bed so she was sitting up, hearing Kylar still in the library and Tesse in her study.</p><p>Looking over to Shina, she sighed sadly at the state he was in, knowing how panicked and angry he was going to be once he woke up and found out that Chrystal was still missing. It was going to be a fight to convince him to remain on the estate and not just charge back to the mainland to find her.</p><p>Though frankly, Tacita wasn’t sure which side of that particular fight she’d be on.</p><p>But that didn’t matter right now.</p><p> </p><p>Stretching her legs to test how much strength and use they had, she was satisfied that they should be able to handle her weight since they hadn’t been damaged directly, and she stood up carefully, nodding in relief when she was able to balance without any issue. Opening the door and making her way down the hallways, she paused for a moment outside of the library before knocking quietly and entering when Kylar hummed.<br/>The moment they laid eyes on each other Kylar was out of his chair and pulling her into his arms, which she more than happily melted into and grabbed him in return, breathing in his scent and burying into the crook of his neck. Reaching up, he ran his fingers through her matted hair lovingly, breathing heavily in relief as he held her.</p><p>“Oh thank the gods...I…” Kylar swallowed off the thought, shaking his head slightly to get rid of it before simply holding her closer.</p><p>In response to the unspoken thought, she pulled back just enough to cup his jaw softly and kiss him gently and lovingly, and he kissed her back just as sweetly, the fingers in her hair dancing lightly in the way that made her melt, and she hummed happily against his lips as she broke off the kiss to rest her forehead against his.</p><p>“I’m here. We’re here. We’re okay.” She whispered to him, opening her eyes to look into his with reassurance and her own relief. “We’re both okay.”</p><p>“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...”</p><p>“It’s not your fault. None of what happened was your fault. It was <em> my </em> anger, and you followed me.” Tacita shook her head with a soft look to comfort him, placing her hand on his cheek and resting her forehead against his again. “ <em> I’m </em>sorry.”</p><p>“The four of us should have stuck together...now look at us.” Kylar winced, squeezing his eyes tightly as a lance of guilt and fear went through him, and Tacita sighed as a similar ache of guilt went through her own chest.</p><p> </p><p>In her fixation on her anger, she hadn’t given herself time to be concerned that Shina and Chrystal had gotten separated from them far enough to have escaped her awareness, which she never should have allowed to happen. Instead she had grabbed Kylar and furthered it. And now Shina was broken and Chrystal was missing, meanwhile the two of them had nearly been killed because of her hatred.</p><p>She was the one person who was never supposed to let themselves get blinded.</p><p>And now everything was the way it was.</p><p>Even if Shina and Chrystal had gotten separated regardless, if Tacita had been in good condition by the time the dust cleared she could have <em> easily </em>found Chrystal by now.</p><p>But instead she was here. Foolish, guilty, and useless.</p><p> </p><p>At some point in her thoughts she’d started crying and Kylar had wrapped his arms around her to comfort her, the two of them sinking onto the couch in front of the fireplace, Kylar clearing away the nearby pile of books so she could curl up into him properly.</p><p>When Tesse heard the sounds and poked her head in to check-in she’d almost opened her mouth in both relief that Tacita was awake but also concern as to what was happening, but a discouraging look from Kylar simply had her give the pair a sad look before leaving again, heading down to get some sort of dinner ready for the girl since she’d been asleep so long.</p><p>Tacita curled up tighter on Kylar’s lap as she cried out violent apologies to her friends, particularly to the friend that was still missing and who they didn’t even know for sure was still alive. It was a horrific thought, but it was her role to consider all the possibilities of a situation, and it was one of them. But if she hadn’t lost focus, it wouldn’t even be on the table.</p><p>All four of them would be okay, and they’d be together.</p><p>Wrapping his arms around her tightly, Kylar pressed soft kisses to the top of her head as he let her burrow into him for comfort, and he simply continued to hold her tight and run fingers through her hair gently, slowly working out the knots that had formed while she was tossing and turning in her sleep during the main part of her healing.</p><p>He had a pretty good idea of what she was thinking, he knew her too well, but there was nothing he’d be able to say that would convince her otherwise of what she was thinking of herself over and over again.</p><p>Both of them had made the mistake, he was an arrogant fool to have thought he could take Cinder on his own, and to not insist that they bring the other two with them.</p><p>They were a <em> team </em> , they weren’t just the <em> two pairs </em> anymore like they still so often acted like they were.</p><p>Most of the time their teamwork was immaculate, sure, but when the pressure kicked up they always split into the same two pairs, and <em> this </em>was the final proof of why they shouldn’t.</p><p>It was time that Kylar forced himself to not think of the other two as less than he was, because deep down he knew that he still did.</p><p> </p><p>They weren’t two pairs. They couldn’t afford to be.</p><p>Not in the new world they were apparently a part of.</p><p> </p><p>As he finished his train of thought, making a decent amount of decisions at the same time, Tacita had calmed down enough that she sat up slowly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and swallowing a lump in her throat. From the lack of aura shimmer in her eyes, she’d deactivated her Semblance entirely, which was proof of how drained and exhausted she was. They didn’t feel much need to talk yet, the talking would come later, instead they simply laid together and held each other close, finally relieved to be back together, but eventually Tacita began to twitch with the need to speak, and Kylar didn’t move to stop her, their normal silent agreement that it was okay to break the silence being made.</p><p>“My Semblance has evolved.” Tacita spoke quietly, her voice filled with a mixture of curiosity and also exhaustion. Blinking in surprise, Kylar looked down at her.</p><p>“I think mine has too. Well, it’s started to. But what’s the deal with yours?”</p><p>“Well, you know how I was asleep for so long?” Tacita sat up from his lap, stretching out on the couch and shuffling over so they could look at each other properly, when he nodded she tapped her fingers on the cushioning in thought. “I was there. Sort of. I could see everything, and hear everything. Like my Semblance was still working.”</p><p>Raising his eyebrows in surprise and fascination, Kylar shifted in his position to face her properly as well and crossed his arms in thought, but also in concern. Such a thing...it could drive a person insane. “Trapped in your body while you were laying there?”</p><p>“No, I was outside of it.” Tacita realised the best comparison and snorted in amusement and shrugged. “I was astral projecting. I could hear, see, walk around...up to the maximum range of my Semblance.”</p><p>Frowning as he mulled over it, Kylar chewed the inside of his cheek. It would certainly explain the random flashes in her aura, and it made sense considering Semblances don’t simply turn off when you sleep, so of course she’d still be aware of anything. It would all just be processed on a different level of consciousness so she could still sleep.</p><p>If she was saying what he thought she was, it clearly meant she could simply just...access that level of her mind now.</p><p>“How much could you see?”</p><p>“I could read your book over your shoulder, and if I stretched my range to its maximum, as exhausting as that was, I could reach the front parlour. But the further I went the more distorted things became.” Tacita’s eyes were distant as she thought over what she’d done and been able to sense, and as she said it all out loud and saw the thoughts flashing through Kylar’s eyes it began to properly sink in what she was capable of if she managed to replicate it.</p><p>“Gods…” Kylar let out an amazed breath, sitting back as he thought over it. “Same with your hearing?”</p><p>“Same with my hearing. But not my sense of touch, temperature, or smell.” Tacita shook her head, shrugging in resignation. “That’s how I knew it was just my Semblance. Just the two normal ones.”</p><p>If she was able to replicate it, it meant she was able to observe a range of around five hundred meters without being seen and without the need for rest. The drawbacks were how taxing it was mentally, and she had a few tests to run but she’d wager that it would take longer to wake up the further away from her physical body she was. But that was just an assumption on her part that would require testing.</p><p>If she was able to replicate it in the first place.</p><p>Also there was the obvious drawback that her body was completely helpless during it.</p><p>Considering she had no idea how she did it in the first place, it would be hard to replicate it easily.</p><p>But, it wasn’t like they were short on time to run such experiments.</p><p> </p><p>Shaking her head as she filed the thoughts away for later, she looked to Kylar. “What about yours? You mentioned it’s started to change?”</p><p>“Yeah...it comes in flashes, but it’s…” Kylar frowned as he tried to explain it, uncrossing his arms and instead sitting forward, grabbing for one of the books he’d been reading and snatching up his notes as well, shuffling closer to her to open up to a specific page he’d recorded the number of.</p><p>Shuffling closer to him so she could read it as he pointed it out, he skipped through chapters on the different philosophical implications of dust and Semblances, along with conjecture and theories on where they’d come from and what they meant. Spiritual explanations, scientific explanations, all of the above. Honestly they were actually all really interesting books, and he felt like a child for dismissing them as ‘boring’ compared to just wanting to develop his personal superpower.</p><p>Frankly he was feeling like a child for a lot of things since waking up.</p><p>...it reminded him that he still was one, in a lot of ways.</p><p>Finding the right section, he pointed it out to her even as he explained his own thoughts on it while she read it.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a theory that nature is to dust what Semblances are to people, but it’s based on the major theory that a person’s Semblance is formed out of who they are as a <em> person. </em>That it’s a representation of the core of their soul. Right?”</p><p> </p><p>Tacita nodded in understanding. That explanation of Semblances was one of the major theories, and it had a lot of psychological and philosophical implications if it was true. Personally it was her favourite theory and the one she agreed with, meanwhile Kylar had always dismissed those sorts of philosophical explanations for things, instead focusing on hard science.</p><p>So to hear him talk about it as if it was a viable theory, was definitely an interesting change.</p><p>At her nod, he continued.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, there’s a theory that dust is similar. It’s the core pure form of the natural substances it’s related to. That dust are the few scraps that remain after everything else in the universe was made out of those initial building blocks. The theory says that’s why we call it ‘dust’, since it’s like sawdust left over after turning wood into something else. So when all the original water was created, water dust remained as a lingering sign of that initial formation.”</p><p>Looking up as her boyfriend tapped the book animatedly as he explained, having clearly put a lot of thought into the theories and his eyes flashing with thought as he went through it, Tacita couldn’t help but think he was always very cute when he was mentally stimulated by something, but then he kept talking, so she stayed quiet. Taking a breath and letting it out slowly, frowning in uncertainty, Kylar tapped his fingers on the pages of the book.</p><p>“I think I can <em> see </em>it. Not all the time, it comes and goes at the moment, but I think I can see the dust in things. It’s been on and off since the breach, but since waking up from the battle...it’s coming and going pretty regularly.”</p><p>Kylar was frowning and tapping his fingers, meanwhile Tacita went quiet as she thought about it. It wasn’t impossible, considering the root functionality of Kylar’s Semblance, being in accessing the innate capabilities of dust. And if the original ‘dust’ was inside of everything, then Kylar’s Semblance strengthening resulting in being able to see it...it wasn’t completely unreasonable. But it led to another question.</p><p>“Can you access it? Can you <em> use </em>it?” Tacita asked curiously, and from how Kylar frowned deeper and closed the book gently it was clear that it was a question he’d been thinking over as well, and hadn’t come to a conclusive answer.</p><p>“No, it’s not real dust anymore. And I don’t even properly understand what it is I’m even seeing, hence…” Kylar gestured to the books before sighing and closing his eyes, Tacita sitting still for a moment before laying down on his lap.</p><p>Absently running his fingers through her hair as he rested his eyes, Kylar chuckled exhaustedly and shook his head. “Well, we certainly have time to test.”</p><p>“I was thinking something similar.” Tacita sighed, her own eyes closed and her senses as dulled as possible so she could focus on the warmth of the fire and Kylar’s fingers in her hair, snuggling more comfortably into his lap.</p><p> </p><p>They were quiet for a few moments before Kylar spoke up again, his voice suddenly very serious and concerned, coming after a deep breath as he broached the subject that he’d known he’d have to bring up eventually.</p><p>“There’s a lot we all have to talk about. My mum finally explained everything, and...we’re in a worse hell than we could have possibly imagined. We’re out of our depth, but we have a lot we might have to do.”</p><p>“I know, love. I was there next to you. I heard it all, and we’ll talk about it.” Tacita answered softly and confidently, before both of them opened their eyes and looked over at the doorway when a new voice spoke up.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, <em> -I- </em> might have to be filled in. I’ve got more than a fair share of questions.”</p><p> </p><p>Tacita sat up and smiled widely and brightly in relief at Shina leaning against the doorway, clearly still in pain and the tendrils finally gone from his skin. He gave them both a pained but affectionate smile as he limped over, Tacita quickly standing up to hug him and express her relief with a squeeze and hurried whispers. He kissed her on the side of the head, and when she stepped back Kylar took her place, though their hug was far quicker, with Kylar’s lesser fondness for physical affection. But the fact he’d hugged Shina at all meant a lot to the blonde boy, and Shina gave him a smile as they all sank back down into chairs again, Shina wincing as he stretched back in his armchair. While his skin was still noticeably paler than normal, it was from exhaustion and not his Semblance any longer, the last signs of it having finally faded apart from a few final tendrils inside of his eyes that made the gold seem brighter.</p><p>Sitting up straight as she sat back down, Tacita gave a strained and guilty look in concern.</p><p> </p><p>“So what happened to <em> you? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, Shina thought back over the night. None of the memories got blurry until he started thinking over his fight with Adam. But everything before that point was crystal clear, the mental training from his father working far more effectively than the academies had taught the others. But it also meant that to him the night was far, far longer.</p><p>“Chrystal heard a clash in the West Courtyard of campus and we went to investigate. It was the White Fang...a <em> lot </em> of them.” Shina frowned, burying his face in his hands for a moment and letting out a breath as he remembered it. “Their leader was there. Some guy named Adam. Once Chrystal found out about...Petyr and CULD, she took off. Gave into battlerage. I’ve <em> never </em> seen her like that..”</p><p> </p><p>Glancing at each other, Kylar and Tacita had a silent conversation in only a look. Shina would need to be told about Chrystal, as soon as they got the right opportunity. And it likely wouldn’t be pretty.</p><p> </p><p>“So it was just me when Adam decided to show up. I <em> should </em>have let him be. With the dragon flying around, and no backup, I should have evacuated.” Shina sat back, looking into the fire in regret and frustration at himself, absently running a hand over the fresh collection of scars on his torso. “But...I didn’t. Something stopped me leaving, and it got worse the longer we fought. He was strong. Far stronger than Lillian or Pyrrha. Or me. So I pushed. Went to the Fourth.”</p><p>“The <em> fourth?? </em>” Tacita closed her eyes in a degree of understanding, nodding. “That explains your injuries.”</p><p>“It was...strange. Something got in my head. And it was like I couldn’t stop. The Fourth wasn’t quite enough, so I went to the Fifth. I didn’t think I even properly could yet.” Shina’s eyes were distant as he thought back over it.</p><p>It had been...scary. He hadn’t been able to stop. The same strange impulse that had caused him to stay in the fight in the first place had only gotten worse the longer it went on, with each cut. Every cut made him want to go to the next one.<br/>And the Fifth had been… Something else entirely.<br/>Despite the damage it had been doing, and the lack of rational thought he’d had by then, he’d felt like a <em> god. </em></p><p>“I got him, with it. Got in the right amount of solid hits. I’m not sure if it killed him, but considering I wasn’t killed after passing out…” Shina shrugged, glancing down at his pale skin and frowned in concern and uncertainty. “How long have I been out?”</p><p>“Two days. You looked yourself in the mirror yet?” Kylar asked quietly, and Shina’s face faltered as he nodded, answering with a degree of insecurity.</p><p>“Yeah. The last of those black marks didn’t go away until I focused. The scars are pretty vicious too...” Shina’s eyes went distant as he thought over the tendrils.</p><p> </p><p>While he knew that he went pale and his eyes glowed when he activated his Semblance, nothing like the tendrils were anything he knew of, meaning it was either caused by the fourth but usually vanished since he’d never seen them the one previous time he’d gone to that level, or they were a result of the fifth. What they meant and what they <em> did, </em> he didn’t know.<br/>But he remembered how it felt to go that high. It had been hard to think straight.<br/>Hard to think much at all, or about anything other than the blood and the fight. But it also felt good.</p><p>One of the most concerning parts was that he hadn’t felt pain when he was in the fifth.</p><p>Normally he did, and it helped him keep in mind the damage he was doing to himself. But in the fifth the sensation of pain had vanished entirely.</p><p> </p><p>Professor Goodwitch, and plenty of other people in his life, thought of him as an idiot. Maybe he was, he wasn’t sure of their criteria, but he understood his Semblance better than the professor had made it clear she thought he did.<br/>So to be aware of the change in limits and capabilities in this new level, changed everything, and plenty of it was in ways he already understood.<br/>Especially the damage.</p><p>So his condition didn’t surprise him. But it did horrify him.</p><p>He certainly wouldn’t be back to full strength for a while.</p><p> </p><p>But that wasn’t the most pressing problem, as his eyes glanced around the room.</p><p>The three of them were quiet for a few moments, before Shina asked the question that the other two had honestly expected to be the first one out of his mouth. But Shina’s eyes had been growing increasingly concerned, as his sister’s absence grew more and more jarring.</p><p> </p><p>“...where’s Chrystal?”</p><p> </p><p>“At the time that we were evacuated...she hadn't been found yet. She's missing.” Deciding to be simply honest, Kylar rested his elbow on the armrest and his face in his hand, hearing it as Shina jolted. But he didn’t reply straight away. Instead he merely stared at the two of them with open eyes as his mind ground to a panicked halt.</p><p> </p><p>Closing his eyes as a stab went through him, Shina took in a shaking calming breath and let it out slowly, trying to swallow rising panic, and his voice was forcibly quiet.</p><p>“<em> Two days. </em> She’s been missing for <em> two days? </em>”</p><p>“...yeah. But my dad’s still at Beacon looking for her. He’ll find her. There’s an outpost in the city still looking for the missing.” Speaking as placatingly as possible, Kylar held eye contact, but wasn’t surprised when Shina nodded but made his own decisions.</p><p>“Alright, good. Let’s head back, then.” Shina went to stand, complete firmness in his voice as he did so and his eyes serious. There was no true talking him out of it, even though the other two knew they had to.</p><p>“We can’t. Air traffic is closed.” Kylar spoke up quietly, and Shina merely shot him a shocked and fierce glare.</p><p>“We’re <em> going. </em> We are <em> not </em>just leaving her, Kylar. There’s always a way back.”</p><p>“Shina…”</p><p>“<em> Two days, </em> you two. She’d do the same for either of you and you <em>know</em> it.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking at each other, Kylar and Tacita knew he was right. If it was either of them, Chrystal would likely tear the city apart alongside whichever other two remained, without stopping, to try and find them.<br/>That was just the way she was when someone she cared about was in danger.<br/>But the four of them were in more danger than either herself or Shina had any way of knowing about, and the two of them were telling the truth when they said they were stuck on Patch for now.</p><p>They wouldn’t be <em>able</em> to leave until Logan came back with their private jet, and even then it wouldn’t be for a couple of months.</p><p>As much as it made bile rise in Tacita’s throat, she knew that Chrystal was on her own, for now at least.</p><p>They had to trust her to be alive and to get herself back.</p><p>And then they had to hope she’d forgive them.</p><p> </p><p>“I know. But the point remains that there’s no way back to the mainland.” Kylar spoke in the same quiet and placating voice, even with his eyes firm and convincing. “We’re stuck on Patch.”</p><p>Nodding, Tacita cut in as well, standing and taking Shina’s hand to calm him. “She’ll be okay, Shina. She’s the toughest out of us, and the best in a danger zone.”</p><p> </p><p>Going still again, looking away at a far wall, Shina gripped Tacita’s hand tightly as his grip trembled and his breath caught in his throat with every inhale.</p><p>“I <em> can’t </em> leave her <em> alone </em> . That city was a hellzone even before I was knocked out, and guys...” He hesitated, giving them both worried looks. “I’ve <em> never </em>seen her like that. And I’ve seen her at worsts you can’t imagine.”</p><p>“Logan <em> will </em>find her. I promise.” Tacita squeezed his hand and pulled him into a hug. He didn’t respond at first, but he eventually wrapped his arms around her and rested his forehead on her shoulder despite the height difference.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, after taking a number of calming breaths, Shina came back to himself, pulling on his <em><span class="u">leader-mask</span></em> just like he had to do and he knew it.</p><p>Chrystal was by far the toughest out of the four of them when it came to resilience, and she’d proven time and time again she was self-reliant. He could trust her to look after herself and come home safely.</p><p>She always had before.</p><p>And he had to focus. She may be his sister, but he had two other teammates right in front of him, and neither of them looked in great condition.</p><p> </p><p>So he stood back from Tacita and turned to the other two.</p><p>“...okay. Alright. Okay. So...what happened to you two...?”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing and looking at each other again, Kylar sucked in a breath and his face steeled, taking on such a hesitant and uncertain expression that Shina blinked, having never seen Kylar openly look as if he was out of his depth before.</p><p>“...you’re going to want to sit down for this.” Kylar bit the inside of his lip, and the look in his eyes had Shina sit back down cautiously. “I’ve never met your parents, but it doesn’t sound like they’re the type to have ever read you many fairytales?”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning in confusion, Shina shook his head slowly in confirmation. “...not really. Chrystal’s parents read them to her, but yeah. Never mine.”</p><p>“Right. That makes this a bit harder to explain.” Kylar winced, slowly unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the unique scorch scar on his chest, and Shina sucked in a breath when he saw it.</p><p>Kylar nodded in preparation as he began.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a story my parents read me a lot as a kid. The story of the four seasons. I never understood why they read it to me so much, at the time. But I do now.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Sitting across from each other at the campfire, Neo and Chrystal glanced at each other every few moments, regularly meeting eyes and then looking away again, back down at their emptying dinner bowls and mugs, eating basic rations from Chrystal’s pack and having the girl relieved that she’d had the foresight to take extra handfuls from the dorm. Having a smaller amount of aura, Chrystal’s had already fully recharged and her injuries were visibly healing, meanwhile Neo’s were taking slightly longer, and both girls noticed the sheer difference.</p><p>Eventually, the curiosity of it all got the best of Neo, and she put down her mug and waved to get Chrystal’s attention. When Chrystal raised her eyebrows with her fork still in her mouth, Neo hesitated again before her face took on a curious expression and she frowned.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Why did you save me? You were trying to kill me, and certainly going a bit wild about it. Then halfway through...you save me?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Pondering over the question, Chrystal took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as she reflected. In a lot of ways, it had been a reflex, a honed instinct from years of training but also from simply a part of herself that she had quietly been grateful was still there at all even after the past few days. The battle of Beacon had clearly changed her in an instant, had likely changed <em> all </em>the survivors, because she’d watched more people die in one night than she likely would in several years to come. Both to weapons, and to Grimm.</p><p>“No-one deserves to die like that. I don’t care who they are. A fair fight is one thing, but torn apart by Grimm is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.” She paused, her eyes briefly flickering into an insecure glare before she looked down. “Not even you.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking into the fire as she finished, somehow unable to handle the strange look that came over Neo’s face during her answer; guarded, but mostly almost thankful and Chrystal felt as if it wasn’t simply just a gratitude for saving her life. There was something else in it, something that had Neo’s eyes briefly go far away. A memory.<br/>Raising an eyebrow after a brief silence, Chrystal spoke up again.</p><p>“Besides, you could have stabbed me in the back at any point during the rest of that fight. But you had my back just as much as I had yours.”</p><p>Blinking, Neo seemed to silently hiss in frustrated thought as she looked away, as if it hadn’t occurred to her and the acknowledgement of it made her uncomfortable. But that guarded softness was still in her eyes even as she closed them to try and hide it. Trying to clench her jaw and put up the casual dismissiveness that usually protected her, she sighed and let it slip away, instead giving a slow nod, making eye contact again.</p><p>
  <em> “...no-one deserves to die that way. Right?” </em>
</p><p>“Right.”</p><p> </p><p>The two held eye contact for a moment, a silent pang of grief hitting them both on their own ends and seeming to meet in the middle over the fire, before Chrystal broke eye contact and looked away, finishing the last remains of the practically flavourless noodles but still nursing the bowl in her hands. The two returned to silence, but a slightly more comfortable one. <br/>But eventually curiosity got the better of Chrystal, and she shuffled in where she was sitting as she looked up at the other girl. “So why were you poking around in the ruins, anyway? It didn’t look like you were simply looting.”</p><p>Freezing, Neo lowered her bowl and put it in her lap entirely, looking down at the dregs of camping noodles still in it and thinning her lips. <em> “Looking for someone I got separated from during the night in the middle of a fight, who I’m very worried about.” </em></p><p>“Torchwick.”</p><p>At Chrystal’s almost instant answer, Neo only hesitated for a moment before she nodded, unsurprised at the fact it wasn’t a hard guess to figure out.<br/>They were quiet for a few moments before Neo tilted her head to ask Chrystal the same thing. <em> “What about you?” </em></p><p>“Just climbing up to get a good view, trying to find the way out of here. I was knocked out during the fight, and I guess my team couldn’t find me…” She absently reached a hand up and scratched at the scarred skin on her face as she answered, her face going strangely blank as she thought about it, before she noticed and immediately put her hand back in her lap. But it was clear that Neo had noticed, and the girl’s face flickered sympathetic. Chrystal shook her head to dismiss it and move on. “So I’m trying to get back to them.”</p><p> </p><p>Tapping her fingers on the side of her bowl, Neo narrowed her eyes as she studied Chrystal’s expressions. A question was on her mind, and if they were apparently going to be talking despite evidently going to have one of them kill the other…</p><p>
  <em> “Why do you hate me? That was all so...personal, earlier. You actually hate me.” </em>
</p><p>Chrystal’s eyes flashed and the grip on her camping bowl tightened so hard the metal creaked in her hands, Neo’s eyes flicking down to it for a brief moment before Chrystal relaxed her grip and she let out a steadying breath, her eyes burning with an almost black flame as she calmed down as best as she could from the flash of rage as she was reminded of...all of it.</p><p>“The two people I love died that night. And you caused it, <em> Eris. </em>” Chrystal snarled out the alias with such hatred that Neo flinched, before being called out for that particular name had it all come crashing and clicking into her head and she nodded shakily in understanding.</p><p><em> “It was never meant to get that far.” </em>Neo shook her head as she lowered her hands again, crossing her arms and looking away, an unreadable expression on her face as her eyes went distant and her thoughts went far away, the occasional tiny expression flicking over that Chrystal couldn’t catch.</p><p>"Well, it did. Our home is ash, the two people I loved are gone, and my friend's left me for dead." Chrystal narrowed her eyes with a shrug, dismissing Neo's hesitance. "You made this bed. I doubt I'm the only person who'd do anything to have your head on a stick, but god damn I'm the one who got here first."</p><p><em> "I..." </em> Neo scowled and bit the inside of her cheek. While she didn't let herself feel guilty about any of the things she did, just as a matter of principle and self-preservation, she couldn't exactly claim that Chrystal's opinions were illogical. If she had been in the same position, she'd be the same way. In fact, if her worst doubts about Roman were true, and it had all been for nothing and they'd both been so grossly expendable, she had her own warpath she'd be tempted to go on. <em>"Well, I can't exactly blame you."</em></p><p>Scoffing, Chrystal shook her head and folded her arms, sitting back against the wall she was leaning against and pinning Neo with a stare filled with the same black ice that was filling her too easily and too often. "Oh thanks. Well, you lost everything you ever called home as well, so feel free to blame yourself."</p><p>Narrowing her eyes further, Neo's face became shielded and dismissive, and she went back to finishing her dinner, the few mouthfuls of it that remained, and then laying her parasol back across her lap, distracting herself by picking at the fabric and frowning at the small rips and damages that Chrystal's blades had managed to inflict onto it, succeeding where plenty of other fighters had failed. Then again, not many of them had ever managed to land solid slices on her anyway that were close enough for her to have to block and not simply dodge, and those swords of her were <em>strong. </em>While the bullets had been easy to block, and they always were, the razor-sharp edge of a clearly beloved blade had done good work. Nothing Neo couldn't repair with the basic supplies she could hopefully grab from the basement of one of her old safehouses, even if the above-ground structure was destroyed, but the fact that any of the dust-infused fabric was damaged in the first place was a feat.</p><p>The conversation seemed over, and the time continued on in a tense silence, both of them looking anywhere but each other with their guards completely up, eventually only broken when Neo's aura crackled to signify it had fully restored, and her injuries had almost fully healed. Even without checking herself over properly, she knew that for the first time in years she'd have some new scars, having been cut properly quite a few times by the other girl's damn fast blade. They wouldn't be large, but they'd be targeted, and Neo would always have reminders just over vital areas and arteries of how close she'd come to losing a true fight to the death.</p><p>If that anxiety and eventual panic had been what her own opponents normally felt before she'd taken their lives, she felt a small pang of sympathy for them. While the fight with Chrystal had been frustratingly even, a fight where they both died was still a loss. It was a tough thing to have to think about, but apart from having to be constantly aware of the fact they were surrounded on all sides and stuck, there wasn't that much else to even think about.</p><p> </p><p>But a question had been eating away at Chrystal even before she had ever looked Neo in the eye, and now that she was able to it felt like too much of an intrusion to ask given what they both clearly expected to eventually grieve for, with their own people they’d lost. But, Chrystal was never one to care about that sort of thing, so she sat up.</p><p>“Can I ask you something?”</p><p>Jolting in surprise as she snapped out of her thoughts, Neo’s expression went guarded and curious again, but she nodded.</p><p>Softening her own expression as much as she could, making it as clear as possible she was genuinely curious and not throwing any sort of attack or passing any sort of judgement, Chrystal asked her question gently.</p><p>“I only met Torchwi-<em> Roman </em> the once, but his reputation was legendary and the two of you did the things that...well, <em> look around us, </em> and I was also at the breach. But...<em>this</em> isn’t the loyalty of a subordinate or a coworker that you’re searching for him with.” Chrystal paused, taking in a breath to let out slowly as she finished her question, watching as Neo’s eyes narrowed as her defenses raised even higher. “The look you had in your eyes when I first saw you picking through the rubble. It...was a lot like how I know <em> -I- </em> look when I worry about my friend Shina. Who I grew up with like a brother. So I’m just curious...underneath the sort of man he was to the rest of the world...is there <em> really </em>something any good in Roman that makes him deserving of the effort you’re going through?”</p><p> </p><p>Without hesitation, Neo nodded with fierce conviction, the fire of her answer visible through the walls she had put up behind her eyes, and her lips thinned as she thought of how to answer in a way that would hopefully make the other girl understand. And she had plenty of her own questions, so if she was honest then she hoped Chrystal would be honest in return when it came time for Neo to poke and prod, likely in only a few minutes. But it was a hard thing to talk about, to put into words, and she'd never really tried before. Things with Roman had been strange, but they'd been weirdly lovely at the same time. The man hadn't been a father to her, or a big brother, more like...weird uncle. The uncle who comes to family gatherings and sneaks you away to the movies once all the other adults were drunk, or let you have your first drink once you were old enough.</p><p>In short, he'd been just what she'd needed just when she'd needed it, and in his own way he'd made it known that she was good for him as well. It had been special. Irreplacable.<br/>And felt vulnerable to talk about. But it wasn't like she had anyone else, and it wasn't like Chrystal would live to tell another soul about it, so talking about him might give her enough hope back to continue her search, to still have even the slightest bit of faith that he might still be alive.</p><p>But that didn't mean it was hard to word. And for not at all the first time in her life, Neo found herself wishing she could talk.</p><p>She tried her best.</p><p>
  <em> “He found me when I was nothing….And he never asked for anything in return, not really. A roof over my head, warm food, he never tried to...well, you know. Like other men did. We made each other laugh. He’d go dancing with me even though he didn’t like it, but he knew I did. I’d go to the movies with him for the same reason. It was...he was...family.” </em>
</p><p>Frowning as she thought about it, Chrystal took in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. It was clear from Neo's eyes that she meant it, and if Chrystal wasn't still thinking about putting a bullet through Neo's head she might have found it rather sweet and reassuring, but with also a bitterness about how Cypher hadn't had that.<br/>...but in a way, Cypher might have been better off, in the orphanage. Meanwhile Neo implied that she hadn't even had that at first.</p><p>How can you really compare two experiences of the same problem?</p><p>But Neo had ended up somewhere along the line that had taken Cypher a while longer to do, and they'd done it for entirely different reasons. Probably.<br/>Cypher had done it for fun. But Neo?</p><p>“And so you joined his gang?”</p><p>Laughing for a moment silently, Neo shook her head. From the moment he'd taken her in, Roman had been completely honest about who he was and what he did, even though back then his criminal empire was young and just beginning to grow. Growing older, she realised that he'd found it rather cathartic to talk about it and share thoughts about it with someone he could trust purely. Such a life must have been very lonely. So once she was older, and he'd been teaching her how to fight for a few years, the choice was a no-brainer.</p><p>
  <em> “No, no that wasn’t really why.”  </em>
</p><p>Neo took in another breath and let it out in a huff as she frowned, unsure why she was even answering at all. But there was an earnest curiosity in Chrystal’s eyes, a desire for understanding not out of any desire to pass judgement, but...it was like there was a part of her that genuinely cared. If not about her, then about <em>something. </em>And they were both likely going to die anyway, or one kill the other, so Neo didn’t have much to lose. If she died having changed at least one person’s mind about the sort of man her friend was, it was worth it.</p><p><em> “I didn’t join his </em> <b> <em>gang</em> </b> <em> , I joined </em> <b> <em>him</em> </b> <em> .” </em> Giving Chrystal as convincing a smile as possible, Neo tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. <em> “Just like you followed your brother Shina. You’re not a Huntsman, little butterfly.” </em></p><p> </p><p>Raising her eyebrows in guarded surprise at the comment and the <em> name </em> , which was one that she normally let...only a few certain select people say, and even the association made her chest feel squirmy even as she had to squash the impulse to punch Neo in the face because of it, Chrystal sat back, resting her weight on her hands behind her as she thought even while keeping eye contact. In a way she knew Neo was right, and had always known. She was good at fighting, and had good instincts, but that was about where the necessary traits of a Huntsman ended and <em> others </em>began; Stealing, agility, infiltration, charisma.</p><p>If not for Shina’s own ambition to be a Huntsman, Chrystal knew she would have ended up in a very different life. Likely a far more enjoyable one, given her experiences thus far.</p><p>“No, no I’m not.” Chrystal shook her head and gave a dejected snort. Whether or not that different life would have been better or worse, it was likely that she would have ended up in the ruins of this city regardless. Not worth thinking about. "But it's the life I'm living, as bad as I am at it, clearly."</p><p> </p><p>That seemed to be the end of the conversation for now, but Neo could tell that Chrystal was still thinking over something, with the ways her eyes kept flickering and she kept scowling at her own thoughts and then shrugging others off. The girl was conflicted, vulnerable, and clearly currently unstable. Which meant it was time to strike, whilever there were gaps in her armour and her reactions would be genuine, but chances are also slightly dangerous.</p><p>Neo’s eyes went sharp as she sat up. It was her turn, while she had the soft opening into Chrystal’s insides.</p><p>
  <em> “So who did you lose?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>As she expected, Chrystal was silent when she reacted, her eyes widening in surprise at the boldness of the question, especially coming from <em>her</em>, but she was too vulnerable and confused to react with any rage. So instead she hesitated, biting the inside of her lip before she answered in a slow and pained voice.</p><p>“My boyfriend, Petyr. I’m willing to bet you recognise him. Most people did, after his matches." She smiled proudly and fondly for a few moments before the loss smashed into her again and she clenched in a visible flinch. "I’m not sure what happened...I just know his teammate Zav found him. I wouldn’t have known how to try and save him if I’d tried.”<br/>Chrystal’s voice ended in a guilty whimper as she squeezed her eyes shut and looked down, gently putting her bowl to the side finally so that she didn’t end up bending it or throwing it in shame. Taking a deep breath, her own eyes almost teared up behind her eyelids before she opened them and answered with a question of her own. “And the other...well, how old are you, Neo?”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking in utter surprise at the out of nowhere question, seemingly completely unrelated, Neo frowned and tilted her head in curiosity. <em> “Almost nineteen. Why…?” </em></p><p>“Because the other person I lost was my ex-girlfriend, my...first love, I guess. Cypher.” She hesitated for a moment, but persevered and then held eye contact unblinkingly. “Your sister.”</p><p> </p><p>At that, Neo went completely still, frozen into a statue with the normally swirling colour in her eyes from her Semblance going still and her skin going perfectly and beautifully as pale as snow as shock and confusion set in. She blinked slowly. That wasn't possible, she'd been alone in the dark room and then Roman had found her on her own as well.</p><p>
  <em> “I...don’t -have- a sister. What are you talking about? And wasn’t that...Cypher...a member of Team CULD?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Snorting in surprise, Chrystal gave a bewildered and broken cackle as she pulled out her scroll, shaking her head in amazement. “You never saw what she looked like? Not even when she was one of Junior's girls?”</p><p>
  <em> “No not really, I never really met any of Junior's special folks, only his grunts. And then once we started planning Beacon, she was Delilah’s business.” </em>
</p><p>It was Chrystal’s turn to freeze, her grip on her scroll going light and cold as she looked down at her home screen, and her brain churning down to a stop. “...what did you just say?”</p><p>
  <em> “...it was Delilah’s job to handle her team, so...I stayed out of it.” </em>
</p><p>“...Delilah Blair?”</p><p> </p><p>Neo nodded slowly, watching as Chrystal’s own skin paled, but it wasn’t a Semblance doing it so instead it looked sickly and ghostly as the girl’s eyes widened and her grip began to tighten, eventually her scroll almost cracking, so she dropped it just so she could clench her fist tightly, staring at it with wide and unblinking eyes that were gradually going from ice cold to a throbbing black flame. Cracks appeared in her composure, small flickers going across her face and her pupils enlargening and dilating in random and seemingly unprovoked moments, a visage that had something in Neo suddenly feel as if she should be on the defensive, and any advantage she felt that Chrystal's instability had given her vanished and instead...reversed. When Chrystal next spoke, her voice was different, filled with an unstable sharpness that had something in Neo clench uneasily.</p><p>“<em> Delilah </em> was working with...you? Was it her that...did it ? Was killing her team, her <em>friends</em>, her <strong>job</strong>?”</p><p> </p><p>Unable to resist responding, the cold and fragile rage in the air too thick and heavy to push back against, almost cold and heavy enough Neo couldn’t breathe, she couldn't <em>move, </em>not more than managing a small simple nod as she subconsciously pressed back against the wall she was leaning against. Chrystal’s head tilted as she considered the revelation, her eyes wide and suddenly unblinking, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly.</p><p>“Why?” She flicked her eyes to the girl to see Neo’s answer, her voice pitifully broken and quiet and it made Neo’s chest ache and her mouth dry.</p><p>
  <em> “I don’t know. She never explained. Cinder knew, but it was just between them.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Taking in another breath and letting it out slowly, Chrystal reached down to her scroll with shaking hands, barely containing her brand new and surprising rage, and hatred, and <em> pain </em> . She slowly flipped through to the clearest and closest photo she had of Cypher, being of the two of them on the edge of the roof of Junior’s club, legs dangling over and sipping drinks, Melanie having agreed to take it with a fond laugh on the condition they both got <em>off</em> the roof and came back inside.<br/>They had not complied even after Melanie had filled her end of the deal.</p><p>Eventually they couple had begun...getting a bit heated, and even though the line of people trying to get into the club below had enjoyed the view, Melanie had still gently climbed up the ladder to the roof and dumped a bucket of ice and water on them.<br/>Which the crowd had also enjoyed, and had made Chrystal cackle wildly and unapologetically even as Cypher had chased Melanie in horrofied amusement.<br/>You can't escape a teleporter.</p><p>It had been a great night. One of Chrystal's favourites.<br/>But now, looking at the photo, she just felt hollow pain. Cypher was gone, and Chrystal felt a pain that she knew had no chance of ever going away.<br/>She just hoped that Melanie and Miltia were okay. Junior's club was relatively on the outskirts of where the fighting must have been concentrated, closer to the docks than to the school. They could have gotten out if they were fast enough.<br/>...she wasn't sure how she'd handle losing any more of her best friends.</p><p>Giving a broken smile down at her scroll, she coughed to smother the dry lump in her gut.</p><p>“This is who you helped kill. Look at her.” She tossed her scroll to Neo casually and emptily, the other girl catching it to look down at it, and she blinked, her own face going unreadable as she processed.</p><p> </p><p>The girl in the photo...something in Neo’s memory sparked, but she had no memories of her childhood. Not really. They were all blurry. But the girl…</p><p>Something in the back of her mind badly fought to be remembered, and she grasped for it desperately as the confusion set in as she looked at all the similarities. Neo was incredibly aware of physical profiles and details, she had to be in order for her Semblance to work effectively, and her eyes picked out every detail and similarity with a practiced sharpness. The jawline, the shape of her eyes, the <em>hair</em>, and not just the shade of pink but...if the girl had grown it out longer than just that short pixie cut, it would have been just as billowy as Neo's own. And her build as well, even though only the top half of the girl's body was visible in the photo.<br/>Their muscle structure was the same. Their smirk was the same.</p><p>It wasn't possible. It <em>couldn't </em>be possible.</p><p>So why was something in her mind suddenly scared?</p><p>Taking in a shaky breath, she bit her lips and closed her eyes, something in her head threatening to get upset about a girl she <em> didn’t even know </em> but was touching something in the back of her mind that was stirring...something.</p><p> </p><p>Lowering the scroll, she opened her eyes again slowly and let out the breath she’d taken in, shakily and insecurely, before she looked to Chrystal, both of her eyes unknowingly changing to the same shade of green of Cypher’s that she’d just been looking at. But she didn’t notice that she’d done it, so she didn’t understand when Chrystal violently gasped with a flinch and looked away for a moment, clenching her jaw.</p><p>
  <em> “I didn’t...did she know I existed?” </em>
</p><p>“No. Not until I showed her a photo of you while we were chasing you.” Chrystal pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged them, keeping her eyes on the fire so that she could see Neo’s answers with her hands but couldn’t see her face. “I thought that <em> you </em> knew about <em>her</em>. It was part of why I hate you so much. I thought you did it knowing. So...there’s that. But only one part of many.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding numbly in understanding, Neo looked back down at the photo, her gloved fingers stroking over Cypher’s face in confusion and a strange twinge of alien and ghostly affection, almost like an echo, that she immediately squashed down and killed, looking away from it and biting the inside of her bottom lip. No. She didn’t have a sister, she was just an orphan, dragged by the worst kind of people to the streets of Vale when she was ten before she escaped at twelve. She couldn’t even remember where she came from, or anything before that dark dark room…</p><p>There was no family left. No last name. Nothing.</p><p>But...she looked at the photo again, for only a few moments, before urgently turning it off in a panic and tossing it back, Chrystal catching it with one hand without even seeing it coming, her eyes still on the fire.</p><p>Slowly, Neo pulled her own knees up to her chest, the dark and heavy places her thoughts were going were punctuated perfectly by the howl of a beowulf a fair distance away across the otherwise silent city. Neither of them moved. They both thought it was appropriate.</p><p> </p><p>If Neo had given more of a shit, she might have noticed what all the people working together against Vale had been tasked to do with a bit more attentiveness. But between the warehouses, her own killings she’d been asked to do, collecting bodies for Delilah, and eventually spying on Team SKTC, she hadn’t cared enough to stick her nose in anywhere else. If she’d paid more attention to what Delilah had even been up to, she…</p><p>Well, what would she have done differently if she’d noticed?</p><p>What <em> could </em>she have done? Roman and her hadn’t had any power in that arrangement by that point, she would have been forced to watch.</p><p>Was this any better though?</p><p>Was <em> any </em>of this better?</p><p> </p><p>She looked out over the city ruins, the smoke still rising from fires still smouldering, knowing that the Grimm were still prowling in every city block and the few survivors still breathing were likely being picked off one by one. The only reason she and Chrystal were still alive was because they'd worked together to get out of the mess they’d both gotten themselves into.</p><p>If she and Roman had tried to stop things...could they have? Or would they’d just die for nothing and it would all go to hell anyway?</p><p>Would this possible unknown <em> sister, </em> Cypher, have still died anyway?</p><p>They had ended up so...powerless. Cinder had <em> owned </em> Roman, and by extension owned <em> her </em>. Forced to participate and help and watch even as they both knew they were in over their heads and on the path of doing something neither of them wanted to do. Vale was a cesspool, far more rotten than Headmaster Ozpin and the council ever cared enough to notice, but it was their home.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. Me too.”</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal’s voice jolted her out of it, and she was confused at what she said until she noticed her wipe a few tears from her face with the back of her hand. Raising her fingers to her own face, she pulled them away and saw they were slightly wet.</p><p>Her composure faltered and weakened, and when she took in a deep breath it came out in a silent sob that she immediately swallowed and coughed to cover, shaking her head at herself and forcing her composure to return and slide back over her face, the same dismissive mask reappearing as best as she could manage it.</p><p>A broken chuckle got her attention again, and she looked at where Chrystal was staring at her with heartbroken eyes, seeing someone in her that wasn’t there despite the resemblance.</p><p> </p><p>“Gods, you’re just like her with that too. Though she smirked with the left side of her mouth, not her right.”</p><p> </p><p>That cut it open, Neo closing her eyes and resting her forehead on her knees, thankful that Chrystal didn’t say another word or pass any sort of judgement as she finally let herself cry. She wasn’t an idiot, deep down she knew the truth inside about Roman. He was dead. Without her help he wouldn’t have gotten off that ship, and that Rose girl was a damn good fighter. And if Cinder hadn’t just gotten <em> him </em> killed, but had also ordered the death of her own <em> sister… </em></p><p>A hatred flickered into life inside of her chest, and even as she cried in grief and rage and sheer overburdened desperation she cradled it to help it grow.</p><p>Hatred worked. Hatred was safe.</p><p>She blinked through her tears, and without looking up she saw the way Chrystal had looked at her during their fight. The hate in her eyes.<br/>And she understood.</p><p> </p><p>Across the fire, Chrystal watched her with a sad but mostly blank expression. She <em> hated </em> Neo, hated what Neo had caused, what she had done. If there was guilt, which she thought was what she was seeing, it meant there had been cowardice, and that was just as bad in Chrystal’s eyes. <br/>But the girl across from her was suddenly looking very, very small. And there was a particular kind of helplessness in her eyes that had Chrystal force herself to look away for a few moments as her chest ached at the sight.</p><p>There was no forgiving Neo for what she’d done.</p><p>For what she’d gone along with.</p><p>Some things you don’t get forgiven for, and when Chrystal looked back at her she could see every part of her that had been in Cypher’s appearance too. The similarities. She saw her Cypher.</p><p>It had been during the fight when Chrystal had become truly convinced that her theory was right and that the two girls were sisters. The similarities in their appearances, both being mute, having the same coloured auras, all of <em>that</em> evidence had made it obvious. Nut when Neo had fought similarly to the way Cypher did, Chrystal had let that be the final proof.<br/>And if Neo believed her, it meant Neo was now dealing with the cold reality that she’d gotten her own sister killed.</p><p>
  <em> 'Good.' </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t surprise Chrystal that the girl was looking more and more lost the longer she cried.</p><p>So she watched, not saying a word, before looking out at the night when another beowulf howled in the distance, an unwelcome flicker of uncertainty in her chest about finally killing the broken and guilt-ridden girl across from her tomorrow. Maybe guilt was better. Killing would be for Chrystal, but there was every chance it would be a mercy for the girl who had lost more than she had known.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The front door to the Goroesi estate flew open as Shina emerged, breathing heavily in a mixture of anger and panic as he looked around, before up at the night sky above. Clenching his fists, he hopped down from the large wooden verandah that surrounded the entire main building, and he skipped forward a few steps until he was properly in the dark, taking deep breaths that came out frustrated and exhausted.</p><p>Following him outside, Tacita watched him sadly while Kylar closed the front door behind them, his own face tight and stressed as the two of them walked over to their team leader, Tacita almost placing her hand on his back before changing her mind and putting it back into her pocket.</p><p> </p><p>“This is…” Shina coughed out a disbelieving laugh, not turning to face them as he ran his tongue over his teeth in bemused frustration and looked back up at the night sky, spreading his hands helplessly up at the moon as if it was the moon's fault. “You realise how this all sounds, right?”</p><p>“Yeah. I do.” Nodding in agreement, Kylar stepped forward so he was next to his friend, and he gave him a serious look that Shina didn’t acknowledge. “I turned it into a two-hour fight when my mum told me. The more answers she gave, the more...plausible it became. Especially after what happened with Cinder. I've never seen anything like her power, Shina. This 'Fall Maiden'...those powers were terrifying.”</p><p>“And so...Pyrrha. We <em> sacrificed </em> Pyrrha.” Shina’s eyes slowly closed as a heavy weight sank down from his throat and moved down into his gut for him to choke on, and his already thin composure shifted for a moment. “For nothing. And our school burned. And our friends died. And we killed. Gods, we had to <em>kill </em>people. I can still feel it. How it felt. What fell out of me. And we lost Pyrrha...”</p><p>“Yeah...I feel it too.” Kylar let out his own angry sigh, rather thankful to have someone else who was also angry about it but better at expressing it.</p><p>“Every single thing that Ozpin and his friends never told anyone, has cost us people we love. Every time.” Clenching his fists by his sides, Shina’s golden eyes still glowed slightly from the lingering influence of his cuts, and it made him a threatening sight. But to Kylar and Tacita, it was just painful to see.<br/>Neither of the other two said a word, simply standing nearby as he thought. They’d both already done their own private thinking about it, so it was just about being there for Shina while he got the chance to do his.</p><p> </p><p>Swallowing down another lump, Shina’s breaths were shaky once he calmed down, and he shook his head in a jerking motion. “No.”</p><p>Speaking quietly, Tacita knew what he was saying, but she needed to know why. Or at the very least, he'd feel better for saying it out loud. “...no?”</p><p>“Nope. Not doing it. Fuck ‘em.” Giving a definitive shrug, Shina looked at the two of them with emotional but firm eyes. “If this Rowena girl has vanished, she clearly had good reason to. And if Pyrrha...died, for that same cause? Then maybe vanishing was the right call. She's safe away from this, isn't she? Amber was known, because she was with Ozpin, so she left a trail, right? Maybe being a ghost is safer.”</p><p> </p><p>Hearing what he was saying, Tacita couldn't really fault his reasoning. In fact, in a large part, she agreed with him. About Rowena anyway, but Pyrrha's sacrifice had to mean something. Maybe it was an old-fashioned notion, left over from a lifetime of storybooks and grand adventures, but...sacrifices should mean something to the people who remember them.<br/>That is, if emotion even still had a place in what was going to happen next.</p><p>The state all four of them were in, with three of them badly wounded and one of them missing, was proof that maybe emotions and impulses wouldn’t keep them alive and victorious like they had in the past.</p><p>So she spoke softly. “We all know you trust Pyrrha’s judgement more than that. And if the absence of a Fall Maiden really was a turning point that doomed Beacon, don’t Haven deserve the chance to ask the Spring Maiden for help?”</p><p> </p><p>Not replying straight away, Shina kept his eyes up at the stars, hoping that Chrystal was out there looking up at them to like she did every night when she got the chance. She was still alive, he could feel it, but that didn’t mean she was okay.</p><p>The costs of Beacon had been too high, and he didn’t even know the specifics of who else had been lost yet. But they were a price that hadn’t had to have been paid, not if they’d all been allowed to be a bit more prepared. If the four of them hadn’t figured things out and given them just those few extra hours, god knows how many more civilians would have died. But if they’d <em> all </em>been prepared, it might not have happened at all.</p><p>But the blame didn’t all belong at Ozpin’s feet.</p><p>Granted, a fair chunk of it did.</p><p> </p><p>The longer Shina thought about it as his mind calmed down, the more he understood why it was the sort of thing to be kept such a secret. It made him black with rage, and he wanted to bring the man he respected so much back to life just so he could kick him to death all over again, but...he did understand.<br/>And the loss of Professor Ozpin <em> was </em> a blow. For Shina personally. The man...<br/>Shina had been so scared when he'd been chosen as a leader. He'd felt like a failure.</p><p>But Ozpin had a way of making people feel like they could do anything.</p><p>Maybe that was the problem. It made people willing to throw their lives away.</p><p>It caused nothing but damage.</p><p> </p><p>But hardly ever as much as the loss of Pyrrha. That one wasn’t so much a knife to the heart as much as it was a gaping wound. A sudden absence of a part of himself. And it hurt. It hurt so much.<br/>Out of the two of them, she was the one who was more likely to have survived the sort of night that it had been.<br/>If she hadn’t gone up the tower, she very well might have. And the world would be better for it.<br/>She <em>should </em>have been the one to survive.</p><p>Turning to Kylar, his eyes were burning with a mixture of rage and grief. “And Cinder. You think you could even get strong enough to face her?”</p><p>“Not alone. If the Maidens are as strong as she seemed to be even <em> before </em> she absorbed the rest? And if she really...dealt with Pyrrha that easily? Not alone. But I might be able to get close.” Kylar shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. While his power <em>was</em> growing and he was beginning to construct theories on how to continue to grow his aura by replicating the pressure he'd been under at the breach and then against Cinder, he wasn't sure he could grow enough. And the still tender scars on his chest were a reminder of a lesson he'd finally learned about not thinking he could do everything himself. "If I get stronger, I might be able to boost you guys enough to have a chance. But we'll have to train that."</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in dark thought, Shina sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head. If Kylar was right in his theory that Cinder would be going for the other Maidens, <em> if </em> she was able to replicate what she did to Amber, it meant that she’d be going for Rowena eventually. And there was no way of knowing just how soon or how easily. But apparently the girl had been truly missing for quite a while, which might mean that Cinder and this...<em>Salem</em>...likely had no idea where to find her either.</p><p>If Shina and Chrystal both agreed, and he and his team got to Rowena <em> first </em> ...Cinder would end up coming to them, along with her two minions. Three people they had a grudge against, and could be prepared for.<br/>That revenge, that justice, could save Haven just as easily as bringing Rowena back into the thick of it could.<br/>And if Cinder repeated the same pattern and general plan, that meant there was every chance that Adam would be in the area too if he survived.</p><p>Frankly, Shina found himself rather fine with that idea.</p><p>Both Kylar and Tacita watched as the gold in his eyes flickered as he thought over it. While Shina didn't have half the academic and logical intelligence that Kylar did, he was twice the strategic mind, even if he didn't trust himself to be. It's one of the reasons why they'd grown to trust him so much as their team leader, and why his decisions tended to be the final word. He hadn't failed them before. Too many people had convinced him he was stupid, just because he'd never be able to properly learn to read, meaning academics were beyond him. It broke Tacita's heart.<br/>But the man was a born strategist, both in battle and in life. So they waited patiently.</p><p>Honestly, it felt damn good to have him back.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay. Once Chrystal gets home, we’ll...talk. But I’m not finding Rowena to bring her back into the things, I won't do that to her. If she left, we should trust that she had a good reason and give her the benefit of the doubt. If we’re going after her, we’re going so that we can help protect her from Cinder and deal with that problem at the root. We find, we protect, and we return to Beacon to help take it back. Fair enough?”</p><p>Turning to face the other two, Shina crossed his arms over his chest and raised a firm eyebrow, unwilling to budge on it, but the other two had no interest in changing his mind. It was a far better plan than Ozpin's simple one, and they both nodded willingly. It was three out of four, and they both knew their fourth member would have suggested the same plan if Shina hadn't.</p><p>It happened to be the person that was currently too far away.</p><p>And they all knew that she was going to be completely on his side.</p><p>So with that known, they began to plan their preparations, talking long into the night.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The moon was truly rising into the sky by the time both Chrystal and Neo had calmed down again and gone silent, having not said a word to each other in over an hour as they lost themselves in their own thoughts.<br/>And Chrystal wasn’t enjoying her own.</p><p>If she was honest with herself, truly honest, she knew she wasn’t heading home to safety as fast as she was likely able to. She could have beelined in that direction and been god knows how much closer by now. Deep down, she was putting it off. Because seeing the outpost, and seeing her friends, made it all finally and conclusively <em>real.</em> It tied the battle off with a bloodsoaked bow and it meant there would be nothing to do except face the truth in full. Whilever she was still in the city, still fighting and in danger, she was able to constantly dedicate part of her energy to being alert and staying safe.</p><p>Once she was home, she wouldn’t have that distraction, and it would hit her even harder than it did when she had slept in her dorm the previous night.</p><p> </p><p>Even though she knew the others were likely either terrified for her, or thought she was dead and she needed to fix that, she was putting her own interests before her safety and their happiness. The need to delay the confusion and grief inside of her own heart, and try and figure out what that new black ice inside of her was that she had felt in the back room of that store when she’d killed that man without hesitation or regret, and when she had first seen Neo. Something had changed in her, she could feel it. It had thrummed when she’d killed that injured man when she hadn’t had to, it had been so <em> easy </em> to put a bullet into him at the time.</p><p>There was another four days of travel and noise and the fuzziness and likely more fighting ahead of her, and she’d almost certainly have to kill more people between here and the outpost.</p><p>And that voice in her head desperately didn’t want to go through it alone, didn’t want to be alone with every dead body she left behind her. Looking across at the subdued Neo, she knew that the girl was in just as bad of a position as she was. They were both strong fighters, and Chrystal was willing to bet that Neo was a fair survivalist but likely not quite on her level, but neither of them were capable of miracles and there would<em> have </em>to be sleep between here and safety, and sleeping without some sort of security or overwatch would be suicide right now. There weren't just Grimm to worry about. If it was just grimm, sleeping alone wasn't always foolish. Find an enclosed space, sleep once you're exhausted so there's no chance of nightmares, and you're all good.</p><p>But with bandits and White Fang still roaming about, it was too risky.</p><p>There was a solution to all of her problems, even as it made her feel gross to even consider it, but it was something they both needed if they wanted to survive.</p><p>Despite the oil in her gut and her common sense fighting against it, the rational part of her brain that wasn’t fuzzy trying to push back, she instead gave into it, and looked at the other girl.</p><p> </p><p>“We both know the truth about the people we love, and we have to get out of here. So, come with me. At least as far as the outpost.”</p><p> </p><p>Sitting up straight in surprise and confusion, Neo blinked rapidly before her mouth opened and closed a few times. Chrystal looked serious, the conviction was in her eyes along with a deep pain, and a level of genuineness that had Neo clench her fists and fiercely grip the material of her pants to ground herself.</p><p>
  <em> “...why?” </em>
</p><p>“Because we’re both lost, and the people we love <em> are dead </em>, and we can’t change that. There’s nothing but killing and loneliness between here and hope, and I guess that despair is a burden best shared.” Chrystal gave a dry chuckle, and though Neo wanted to prod and satiate her new curiosity immediately, from the delicate look in Chrystal’s eyes she knew that could only end in disaster. She knew that look, but she narrowed her eyes regardless. The girl across from her was deeply unstable, and it unnerved Neo just as much as she honestly found it really fascinating, and kinda fun to poke and prod. But it meant that her current sincerity and logical mind could switch to hateful and impulsive in an instant.</p><p>That, was dangerous. So Neo hesitated.</p><p>
  <em> “...you hate me. So how could I ever even start to trust you?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Nodding to acknowledge the point, Chrystal let out a sigh, and Neo watched as some sort of decision was made inside of her and her entire demeanour shifted.</p><p>“Well, considering we’re going to have to sleep in shifts <em> tonight </em>to keep watch anyway, and likely for the next four nights if you come along and if you can keep up...if you wake up for your watch and I haven’t killed you then consider that me showing you can trust me.” Smirking, Chrystal gave a shrug, a flicker of emptiness and...something else that Neo recognised, entering her eyes as she continued. “Hell, I’ll sleep first and give you the chance to kill me immediately. How’s that?”</p><p>The voice she ended it with was so unbelievably hollow that it made Neo’s mind spark for a moment, and the girl’s eyes were very far away, seeming to get even more distant as Neo watched them. </p><p>There was far too much in that look that Neo recognised.</p><p> </p><p>Hesitating as she decided to run another little test, Neo paused for a moment before very slowly standing and making her way around the fire, making sure to visibly keep her parasol in hand, before tentatively sinking down next to the other girl close enough the were almost touching, and noting that Chrystal didn’t even attempt to check if her weapons were still in touching distance.<br/>There was a sort of surrender and acceptance in her eyes that Neo had seen too many times before in the eyes of the most desperate people trapped in the worst parts of the wrong areas of town.</p><p>People who had accepted they were going to have to do horrific things and that they were almost certainly going to die, and didn’t <em> want </em>to fight it anymore, but were fighting it anyway for reasons that weren’t for them. Chrystal wasn’t about to put her gun in her mouth, but she likely wouldn’t move a muscle if Neo tried to slit her throat with her own sword right now.</p><p>Unsure how to help the girl, unsure if she even <em> should </em>help her, Neo was silent next to her for a couple of minutes as they both looked into the fire before she nudged Chrystal to get her attention and looked at her with a serious expression and raised eyebrows.</p><p>
  <em> “You certainly might need the help. Your attacks leave a lot to be desired, little butterfly.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Blinking in surprise at the out-of-nowhere comment, her mind starting the process of going fuzzy and having gone down the worst possible roadsn considering where she was, Chrystal felt a small hum of electricity go through the onset fog at the challenging look Neo was giving her, and she gave a tiny smirk as she raised her own eyebrow.</p><p>“And you could use the protection, given that you rely on your Semblance too much. It was a bit predictable.”</p><p>
  <em> “You -are- pretty hard to hit. How is it your defense is the most delicate I’ve ever seen, but your attacks are clunky and like...half as fast? You more of a chicken than you are a butterfly?” </em>
</p><p>“Well maybe I just had to think about what I was doing a bit more than usual, given you’ve got the most inventive Semblance I’ve ever fought apart from your sister the teleporter, but you did end up doing the same thing over and over again, so it wasn’t like I <em> needed </em>to be much faster anyway.”</p><p>
  <em> “Why were you so afraid of attacking at your full speed from the start? Your reflexes should help you adapt to an opponent's defenses just as easily as they help you protect yourself.” </em>
</p><p>“In case you’ve forgotten, those defensive reflexes saved your life. <em>And </em>kicked your ass.”</p><p>
  <em> “And then my Semblance that I apparently overuse got us out of there.” </em>
</p><p>Opening her mouth to retort and then closing it, Chrystal narrowed her eyes into a glare and then scoffed, looking away in defeat and causing Neo to smirk slightly and nudge her shoulder again, making an effort to bridge the gap even if just for during the temporary truce. Despite the fact Chrystal wanted to kill her, she was pretty amusing to provoke, Neo had to admit.</p><p>The much louder howl of a beowulf got both of their attention, but from being in an elevated position they knew they were in no harm, and the roof over their head protected them from any Grimm in the air. But still, it was reflex for both of them to go for their weapons and grip them, and they both immediately took a moment to study their opponent’s weapons properly for the first time.</p><p> </p><p>For her own part, Neo found Chrystal’s blades to be beautiful, assuming they both matched the one Chrystal had nearby. Single-edged and with a slight elegant curve to them, they were the most perfect slashing design Neo could imagine for a simplistic blade, and she knew from experience that Chrystal moved almost hypnotically gracefully and fast with them. A particular alteration that Neo found intriguing and also clever was that the metal had clearly been treated in order to be darkened, the metal almost black, to absorb light instead of reflecting it. The blades would be almost impossible to see while in shadow or at night. While Chrystal had only used one during their fight, keeping one of her guns in her other hand, Neo knew from her reputation and from watching her fight that Chrystal was more than capable of using them both at the same time, with an agility that put most other dual-wielders to shame.</p><p>The girl’s pistols were, at their base, a simple model, sometimes used by regular soldiers, that had been lovingly and intelligently altered and modified to be far more powerful weapons that were still able to be repaired with components from the original model, making them easier to maintain and clean with standard tools.</p><p>They were also clearly modified to take dust-infused rounds, which was an impressive feat. The girl clearly knew her guns, and that was Neo’s sort of woman, so even from a quick close glance, combined with her experience being targeted by them, Neo could definitely approve of her weapon choices, and her armour was the same. Darkened leather that was tight enough it didn’t catch on things, but loose enough it didn’t impede her movement. Some thicker padding on the more vital areas, some pads were reinforced with metal, but barely any. It was incredibly lightweight. The girl trusted her Semblance and her agility, so traded the safety of armour for the ability to move to her best.</p><p>Her entire toolset was designed for speed, utility, and reliability.</p><p>But they were also far more akin to a rogue or thief, not for a traditional Huntsman. It was the wrong aesthetic.</p><p>But goddamn it was one that Neo approved of.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Chrystal had mixed feelings about Neo’s own. Her outfit had Chrystal feeling a bit odd, seeing a lot of similarities to Cypher’s in the white leather and the vest, but Neo had splashes of colour that brought the look together to be aesthetically pleasing while also very strange to look at, the eye not sure which part to focus on, and when Neo was moving quickly it was a dangerous distortion. She also wore a corset, tight around her waist, but instead of the white that Cypher would have worn it was instead an incredibly dark grey, above padded black pants. Her outfit was even more lightweight than her own, clearly so Neo could focus on speed. During their fight, it had become clear to Chrystal that Neo had gotten used to always being the faster one in a fight, and her outfit showed.</p><p>Meanwhile the girl’s parasol boggled Chrystal greatly. Despite looking delicate and fragile, as most parasols were, it had deflected her bullets with ease and the fabric of it had stood up to Chrystal’s blades.</p><p>It completed her more playful and unpredictable aesthetic and style perfectly, though. And there was no denying that Neo carried it off gorgeously. And dangerously. Her unique fighting style with her parasol had been scarily dangerous to go up against and adapt to.</p><p>Without her particular reflexes, Chrystal knew she wouldn’t have stood a chance against it.</p><p> </p><p>“Dust infused fabric, right? Hardlight?” Chrystal gestured towards Neo’s parasol, still slightly in her grip, and Neo’s eyebrows raised before she nodded in surprise.</p><p>
  <em> “Good guess.” </em>
</p><p>“It’s the only one that made sense.” Chuckling, Chrystal lifted her blade gently. “I was saving up to get my blades reforged and infused with some, but it would have cost a <em> fortune </em>and finding someone skilled enough to do it would have led me far away from here, I reckon.”</p><p>
  <em> “Atlas, probably. I had a contact here in the city who did my parasol, but I’m willing to bet he’s dead now.” </em>
</p><p>“I think we’ll both be able to say that about a lot of our friends from around here.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in silent agreement, Neo looked down at the ground in a mixture of guilt and guarded grief which she attempted to hide as frustration, but Chrystal’s eyes were too sharp and she watched Neo with careful eyes and a guarded expression of her own. They both went back to sitting silently as the fire began to die.</p><p>Eventually, Chrystal felt her muscles beginning to grow heavier, the sheer energy it took to try and fight off the fuzziness draining the last of her energy reserves and she began to lose the fight. So before she'd start becoming irrational and emotional, she quickly came to a decision and began to clear a small space for herself to lie down, looking over to Neo with a deadened and resigned look, completely uncaring about the result even as she tried to hide it behind dismissiveness. And she failed, Neo seeing right through it.</p><p>“First watch is all yours. If you let me live, wake me in like...five hours, and I’ll take over.”</p><p> </p><p>Without giving Neo time to reply, Chrystal casually and carelessly stripped off her armoured jacket to bundle it up as a pillow, leaving her unprotected just in her ripped tank top, and she rolled over, facing away from where Neo was sitting nearby and able to look out into the darkness.</p><p>Watching Chrystal with a well of conflicting emotions, Neo twitched internally. The girl was more than deserving of her reputation, both the good parts and the bad. A hell of a fighter, but completely unpredictable even in the little things, as if she only had two speeds and states of being. There was something about it that had Neo tilting her head at the dozing off girl as she thought about her, and she raised her eyebrows at herself in surprise when she realised that...she actually had no desire or want to hurt the girl, and certainly not to <em> kill </em>her. Not at the moment. Not even with her laid there completely vulnerable, and clearly still considering Neo an enemy, yet just a temporary ally.</p><p>It would have been a chance for true safety, but instead Neo surprised herself by stoking the fire back to life so that they were both warmer, especially the girl now only wearing a tank top despite the cold, and then shuffling in her position so she could better keep watch out into the darkness of the city.</p><p>They were both going to have to get moving early in the morning if they wanted to make good ground, especially because Chrystal’s subtle little jab had been right and Neo knew that for the first time in her life she might have trouble keeping up with someone.</p><p> </p><p>Despite the fact she likely should have been worried, given their inevitable fight to the finish again at some point, instead she simply smirked in amusement at the challenge, having enjoyed the little flash of sass that had gone through Chrystal’s eyes when she’d casually slipped the comment in with what she was saying.</p><p> </p><p>A beowulf howled in the distance, and next to her the already sleeping Chrystal stirred, already having been twitching from the beginnings of a nightmare. It wasn’t surprising to Neo. She knew she was going to have a few too once it was her turn to sleep.</p><p>Against her better instincts, she reached next to her and placed a gloved hand on Chrystal’s shoulder gently to ground her, and nodded in satisfaction when the girl immediately stilled and calmed in her sleep.</p><p>Giving a sad smile to the broken girl, the Butterfly Of Beacon whose laugh would never be heard in the bars and clubs of the city again, Neo let herself feel the <em> faintest </em> pang of guilt and fascination before she squashed both down and turned her head away, looking out at the city once more.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>While all four members of SKTC shared being the emotional center of the first part of this series, the focus is very much going to be on Chrystal in this one at first while she's separated. I hope that's okay with people!<br/>Once they're reunited and they get moving on their mission, it'll be all four of them again.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Where I'm From</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Cypher stumbles and limps her way back to her home in the hopes of having somewhere to relax and recover while she figures out her next step, while across the continent Team LAVA each find themselves each pulled to protect their home in the ways that they can, with Lillian forced to reflect on the failure of the Battle Of Beacon, and whatever might be coming next.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun was already decently high into the sky when Cypher found herself standing outside of Mother Millie’s Home for Wandering Youths, her hands in the pockets of her vest with her hood still pulled over her head to hide her hair. She had to be careful whilever she was in Istburn, she’d almost certainly be recognised here if she wasn’t careful. This has been her home only a little over a year and a half ago, and while she hadn’t been <em> popular </em>she’d definitely had a reputation and was recognisable. Especially in this part of the city, for obvious reasons. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she could hear sounds of voices and movement from inside the decently sized compound, and she was staring at the front door with a lump of anxiety in her gut.</p><p>The city moved around her, people on their business and an energy of fear and anxiety in the air from the events at Beacon. With the collapse of the communications tower, network service was completely cut off in the city at any range larger than the local area, and not being able to communicate or check in on the outside world had most people scared.</p><p>But Istburn was relatively safe, with a permanent garrison of local Huntsmen to guard the territory from grimm, so it was slightly more relaxed than Cypher suspected other cities of the same size would be.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing silently and squaring her shoulders, she decided to just get a move on and hopped up the steps to the front door, biting her bottom lip for a moment before pressing the doorbell and waiting, her hands in her pockets again as she waited for it to be answered. Only a few moments later the door clicked and opened, and she found herself looking into the eyes of Natalie, one of the many ex-orphans who had started working in the building upon turning eighteen.</p><p>Considering the two of them had basically grown up together, with Natalie only being a year older, it wasn’t surprising when the other girl recognised her immediately and her eyes widened, before she stepped forward and pulled Cypher into a close hug, wrapping her up tightly.</p><p>“Oh thank the gods.” Natalie breathed with a choke, her eyes closing as Cypher willingly hugged her back just as tightly, scrunching her eyes up. “We were all so scared we lost you.”</p><p>Only able to nod, Cypher held on tightly for a minute before they both let go, Natalie keeping her hands on Cypher’s shoulders as she looked her up and down, taking in the blood on her clothes and the exhaustion in her eyes from travelling all through the night, exhausting her aura repeatedly from blinking as far along the way as she could. Swallowing in concern, Natalie stepped aside and guided Cypher in, closing the door behind them and sliding her hand from Cypher’s shoulder down to take her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze as she led her in.</p><p>“Come on, Millie is busy with classes at the moment, so we have time to get you cleaned up.”</p><p>Nodding in understanding, knowing it was that time of day for classes to be on, and Millie <em> always </em>taught musical theory of a morning, Cypher merely shyly let Natalie guide her towards one of the spare rooms with an ensuite bathroom, unlocking the door quickly and stepping inside with her to turn on the lights and make sure it was clean enough. It was a simple enough room, with a single bed, a closet, the ensuite bathroom, and a small television and radio, along with a small window that gave a view of the inner courtyard. Even from just being inside this small space, she felt safer than she had in days, and a tension left her muscles that she hadn’t even been aware she’d been holding onto.</p><p>Noticing, Natalie closed the door behind them before pulling her into another hug, tighter and more familiar now that they had the privacy, and pressed a warm kiss to her friend’s cheek.</p><p>“You know you can rest here as long as you need. Millie will understand. She’s been distraught about you ever since...well, for a couple of days now.” Natalie gave a sad sigh before pulling back, her face softening as she gently reached up to wipe a tear off of Cypher’s cheek, then quickly kissing her forehead. “I’ll bring you a change of clothes, something comfortable. I assume you’ve gone up a shirt size? You’ve bulked up and grown a bit.”</p><p>Giggling silently and wetly, Cypher nodded before also pointing at her pants to indicate the same, and Natalie gave an amused smile and stepped back, dropping Cypher’s hands and crossing her own in front of her in a poised posture that Millie had made sure they’d all been taught to have.</p><p>“I’ll get you something suitable, I remember your preferences. Take as long as you need in the shower, and your clothes will be out on the bed when you’re done, okay? And I’ll tell Millie you’re here. Would you prefer to see her here in private, or in her office?”</p><p>Thinking over it for a moment as she untied the laces and buckles of her armoured vest, Cypher indicated to the door to say she’d rather meet Millie in her office, and Natalie nodded before giving her another sad smile and heading for the door, pausing for a moment with her hand on the doorframe as she looked over at her, the sound of children talking and shouting coming through the door as the recess bell sounded.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s good to see you’re safe. I was...worried. We all were.” She gave Cypher a vulnerable smile, the other girl tearing up again slightly and nodding in agreement, with Natalie then closing the door and leaving her alone to shower.</p><p> </p><p>Taking a moment in the silence of the room to rest her mind and start unlocking certain doors she’d had to slam shut as soon as the battle had started, and others that she’d had to force close from the moment she’d seen Delilah, she bit both of her lips as she finally began to let herself cry, letting out a silent shaky breath as she continued undressing and leaving her bloodied and dirty clothes inside the hamper, silently apologising to whoever got to clean them. But she suspected Natalie would do it herself, not just to keep Cypher’s privacy but to make sure none of the other staff or kids saw it. Pausing, Cypher apologised to her friend again as she closed the clothes hamper and slowly walked into the bathroom, not daring to look herself in the mirror before she stepped into the shower and lost herself under the hot water.</p><p>Perfectly content to let herself sob herself into a mess as the blood and dust washed from her skin and hair, she thanked the gods she was cursed to be silent as she sobbed violently and screamed into the water, Lelise’s and Ursa’s faces and laughs flashing through her head before being instantly replaced with their bodies, laying at the feet of their trusted friend who had betrayed them.</p><p>She would have felt the rush of black hatred that had entered her blood every time she thought of Delilah, but right now she was too sad and too broken, instead simply having to resist the urge to punch the wall tiles until her aura broke and her knuckles bloodied, but that was more Chrystal’s style, and instead Cypher simply curled up on the shower floor.</p><p>The thought of Chrystal had another section of Cypher crack and shatter, and her fingers gripped her hair tightly as she went from sitting upright to curling up on the floor properly, the hot water starting to scorch her raw scrubbed skin, but her aura prevented her from burning as she laid there. Even after breaking up with her so she could focus on her team, and Chrystal could focus on her mental health, Cypher’s feelings for the girl had never faded.</p><p>While Cypher, much like Chrystal, hadn’t exactly had a lonely life up until that point, she had fallen for Chrystal with all of her being. Their break-up had been one of the hardest necessary things she’d ever done, and she wasn’t a jealous person so she was so happy when Chrystal and Petyr had gotten together and he’d made her happy. But he’d died too, she saw on the casualty lists.</p><p> </p><p>It was all gone. Everyone she knew and loved, everyone she was loyal to, everyone who had been there for her, were either critically injured or dead. The place that had become her home after leaving the orphanage was rubble and ash and bodies lining the streets.</p><p> </p><p>It had all been taken from her, by Cinder Fall and Delilah Blair. Two names that made her retch, and she would have thrown up if anything had been in her stomach, as her blood heated and filled with black oil as their faces flashed into her mind.</p><p>There was no doubt in her mind what she had to do now. She’d killed now, which was something she’d also have to dedicate some time to think about, but it meant she <em> could </em> do it, and those two names were what she’d dedicate the rest of her life to since she no longer had anything else in the world.</p><p>But she had no idea where to start.</p><p>Yet.</p><p> </p><p>For now at least, she had to rest, and recharge.</p><p> </p><p>Standing shakily, she turned off the water and paused with her hand on the glass door of the shower for a moment, closing her eyes as the water dripped from her skin onto the tiles silently, due to interacting with her aura. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she stepped out and grabbed a towel, having heard the door to the room open and close again at some point as Natalie had dropped off fresh clothes and likely taken her dirty ones.</p><p>She didn’t want to even imagine what Natalie had thought of her chakrams resting on the small tv cabinet where she’d left them, needing to be cleaned and re-sharpened due to being crusted with specks of blood.</p><p>Finally braving looking at herself in the mirror, she wasn’t surprised at the lack of scars. It wasn’t exactly easy to get solid hits on her, and the rubble from the building hadn’t cut into her badly enough to leave scars. Her fractured leg had healed throughout the night, and other than that there were no signs of the battle left on her now that she was showered and cleaned. Except she looked paler, and gaunt from the lack of sleep and exhaustion from using her Semblance so much throughout the full night, cracking her own aura numerous times from using it, waiting for her aura to recharge, and then doing it all over again.</p><p>But no scars at all. Apart from a few thin ones on her right arm from close to the start of her training as a Huntsman, her skin was unblemished, and she nodded in tired satisfaction as she stepped out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around her and smiled softly at the folded clothes on the bed waiting for her.</p><p>True to her word, Natalie knew her preferences, with the clothes either being white or as light a grey as possible. White underwear in her size, comfortable grey jeans, a tight white t-shirt, a white hoodie that was just as tight, and a light grey beanie to hide her identifiable hair, she dressed quickly, pulling on the comfortable thick socks and white boots.</p><p>Ever since she was a kid, she had always loved wearing white. It felt safe, and comfortable, and made her feel strangely powerful. And she liked how it made her eyes and hair stand out, along with her skin which had always been described as perfect.</p><p>So the fact Natalie had remembered and made sure to provide her with clothes that she knew would make her feel safe, meant a lot, and said all it needed to.</p><p> </p><p>Glancing over at her weapons, she knew she had no need to wear them here. This was probably the safest group of buildings in the city, and she was going to be around children, but she’d have to take them to the local garrison at some point to clean and sharpen them, thankful that her student license would give her access. If the circumstances weren’t what they were, she’d feel excited at finally being able to have a look inside of the building she’d always ached to look inside of but had been banned from blinking in to have a peek.<br/>Stepping out of the small room, she closed the door behind her and pulled the beanie lower on her head to hide as much of her hair as possible, resisting the urge to protectively pull the hood up as well, before making her way to the heart of the compound towards the office of the woman who had raised her with more love than she likely had deserved, being the mischievous plague on the woman’s sanity that she’d been.</p><p>Grinning slightly at a wash of memories as she passed by different rooms and heard the voices of certain teachers and staff, she reached the always slightly ajar office door and hesitated again, a spike of anxiety and fear going through her as she raised her hand.</p><p> </p><p>Would Millie think she was a failure? Would she think she was a coward? What if she wasn’t welcome now that she was almost nineteen?</p><p> </p><p>Shaking her head to get rid of the baseless thoughts, she knocked, pulling her aura out of her hand so that it actually made sound. Within moments the door was pulled open entirely and Cypher was looking into the warm brown eyes of her surrogate mother, tears already in both of their eyes as Cypher lurched forward into her arms, Millie bundling her up tightly as Cypher couldn’t stop herself crying into the woman’s shoulder, the woman quietly rubbing comforting circles on her back before pressing a kiss to the top of her head, holding her tightly in the doorway for a few moments before gently guiding her inside and closing the office door and locking it to give them privacy.</p><p>Cypher stood shivering in vulnerability, her eyes wide and breaking apart now that she was in front of her ‘mother’, and Millie immediately pressed a soft and loving kiss to her forehead before cupping her cheek in a lightly calloused violinist's hand.</p><p>“Oh sweetheart...I was so worried. But you’re safe now. You’re home.” Millie pulled her back into a hug, Cypher burrowing into her arms in an almost childlike way and Millie not judging her at all, the young and playful eighteen year old having lost everything, and taken lives, and having had no choice but to run home.</p><p>“You’re safe now…” Millie whispered softly and soothingly, gently pulling off Cypher’s beanie so she could run fingers through her still damp hair. “You’re safe now…”</p><p>Nodding timidly, Cypher pulled back and almost went to wipe a sleeve over her eyes, but Millie grabbed a tissue from her desk and wiped her eyes for her in a motherly way, giving her a sad but loving smile and leading her over to the large comfortable couch against one of the walls and sitting them both down onto it, keeping a hand on Cypher’s back while the girl folded her hands on her lap, knowing she’d need them to sign.</p><p>“Are you hurt? Anything the nurses need to look at?”</p><p>
  <em> “No, no. My aura did the basic work. A serious concussion, my leg fractured in a few places, but that’s all taken care of. All that’s left is that I haven’t slept in two days. But I can keep going.” </em>
</p><p>“Nonsense, the moment we get some food into you we can get you straight into bed.” Millie sighed, rubbing soft circles.</p><p> </p><p> Mother Millie was strong and youthful for her late-fifties, a life of exercise and good nutrition, and she also said that every act of kindness added a month to your life. If the kind laugh lines on the woman’s face were any indication, Cypher had always suspected she might live forever. Beautiful silver hair she kept up in a bun, dark skin with brown eyes, Millie had spent a life performing in theatres as both a classical violinist but she had started off as a ballerina, and she moved and sat with the poise and grace of that life. It was just what Cypher needed as she looked down at her lap, still vulnerable, and bit her bottom lip.</p><p>
  <em> “I lost my team.” </em>
</p><p>“Lost, honey?...”</p><p>
  <em> “Two of them are dead...the third turned traitor, and...and...she’s the one that did it…” </em>
</p><p>Cypher’s hands dropped to her lap heavily after signing, and she closed her eyes as they teared up again even as Millie let out a horrified and saddened breath and pulled her into another comforting hug, whispering sympathy and reassurance in a constant loving stream as Cypher choked up again for another few minutes, growing frustrated at herself and scared she was being pathetic.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, love. Truly.” Millie finished with a kiss to the top of Cypher’s head, giving her a warm and determined look as Cypher sat up. “What do you need? You know you can stay here as long as you like.”</p><p>
  <em> “Just somewhere to rest and recover, and figure out what to do next. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I’m able to be.” </em>
</p><p>“Nonsense, love. You’re one of us. Helix down at the garrison has been a mess worried about you, you were always his favourite student. And I know the academy has been the same way.”</p><p> </p><p>Giving a sad but thankful smile, Cypher nodded in fond gratitude. <em> “Please let me earn my keep though. It’s what you taught us. I’m a guest, let me provide as one.” </em></p><p>“That’s a good girl. I can’t say I’m happy about the idea, considering what you’ve been through, but you’ve always been stubborn.” Millie chuckled, cupping her cheek again. While she didn’t want Cypher to go out of her way, the girl clearly broken in too many ways, she wasn’t going to deprive her of purpose and structure if she needed it.</p><p>
  <em> “So how can I help?” </em>
</p><p>“We can talk about that after you wake up, dear. I’ll ask around, okay? Do you still dance at all, or have you been too busy?”</p><p>Cypher nodded confidently and enthusiastically, her hands clasping together in a wave of anxious determination for a moment before she relaxed them. <em> “I still practiced two hours a day, after classes and training. And about three times a week I went out dancing in town.” </em></p><p>“I’m glad to hear it, honey. It always made you happy. Well, I doubt the dance department at the academy would reject you if you were willing to teach some classes?”</p><p>Blinking and straightening up, Cypher thought over it for a minute. It would be peaceful, and it would be doing what she loved more than anything else in the world. A good distraction, at least while she got back into form and figured out her next moves. Maybe for a month or two. Just from focusing on herself for a handful of moments, she knew she wasn’t mentally and emotionally put-together enough to go on the hunt yet.</p><p>So, a month or two of dancing…</p><p>Yeah. That’d be perfect.</p><p>So she smiled softly and nodded, and Millie smiled back and cupped her cheek again.</p><p>“That’s my girl. They’ve missed you, and were all rather sad you didn’t compete in the tournament so couldn’t watch you. But given how things turned out…” Millie sighed, stroking Cypher’s cheek softly in sad sympathy. “I’ll call Esmerelda while you’re sleeping and ask. Thankfully the local signal is just strong enough we can reach that side of the city.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in gratitude, Cypher tried to hide a yawn, the exhaustion hitting her in full force now that she was relaxing and her mind unwinding, but Millie merely raised an amused eyebrow and gave her a light pat on the cheek before standing.</p><p>“None of that stubbornness. Let’s get some food into you, I know Natalie went and asked the kitchens to prepare something for you while you were in the shower. Food, and then bed. You’re a petite little thing, but you’re a bit too tall for me to carry you to bed anymore if you pass out on me.”</p><p>Giving Cypher a grin when Cypher raised her eyebrows at being called petite and little, Millie merely opened the door of her office and led Cypher towards the kitchens, the two of them passing by a few of the courtyards and small unused classrooms where other kids and teenagers were grouped up chatting and spending their free time until their next classes. A few of the older teenagers who recognised Cypher either gave her waves or, if they were more in the loop, relieved looks and the occasional quick hug.</p><p>While she teared up a few times at the warmth, Cypher was out of tears to actually cry, and merely felt herself relax more and more, especially when she entered the kitchens and was greeted by the staff that had been dealing with her blinking in to steal food for years, each of them greeting her with warm and affectionate relief that she was alive and back. One overly large meal later, and Cypher didn’t even have the energy to walk back up to her room, merely giving Mother Millie another tight hug and a kiss on the cheek in gratitude before stepping back, winking because she knew Millie always found what she did next amusing, and then blinking up into the room she was staying in, enjoying the slight breeze she always got when she blinked anywhere with full aura.</p><p>Dropping onto the bed, she was asleep before she’d managed to take her hoodie or boots off, and by the time she woke up late that afternoon she noted with warm amusement that her hoodie and boots had been removed, and a small bowl of snacks had been left on her bedside table, along with a note from Natalie and a few of the other’s she’d grown up with welcoming her home and expressing relief she was safe.</p><p> </p><p>Reading the note a second time with sleepy eyes, she bit her bottom lip again before laying back down in the bed and holding the note in her hands, closing her eyes and having no intention of leaving safety anytime soon.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Despite the sunny skies above, the breeze across the upper levels of Haven kept the city deceptively cool, with the autumn chill growing stronger with each passing hour that had the normally temperate city uncomfortable. More and more wounded came into the city every day, either refugees from Vale or wounded from the towns and villages close enough that evacuation was even possible. It kept the hospitals busy, and both Alice and Angel had less and less free time as their duties as medics grew too urgent and too constant, instead spending it on their feet in stressed noise. Both fully believed in the cause they had chosen for themselves, and Angel was a talented combat medic while Alice had always been a natural study for biochemistry and practical pharmacology.</p><p>They each took after their parents, and didn’t have it in themselves to be apologetic for the time away. Not that their teammates would have expected it from them, given their own sense of duty and a desire to help.</p><p>On that front, Lucille had been forced to temporarily return to her home city on the coast, that section of territory having little in the way of Huntsmen protection and the locals had requested her return. While she didn’t match Lillian in terms of combat strength, she was an incredibly powerful and talented huntress, <em> and </em>she was their team leader, so the other three didn’t stop her, and weren’t particularly worried for her.</p><p>She was only going to be away for a week until more licensed Huntsmen returned from Vale and could reinforce the territory themselves, but until then she was out on her own.</p><p> </p><p>Leaving just Lillian Vale, heiress to the Vale legacy, alone in her family estate. With most of the mansion constructed out of the rich timbers of the region, it absorbed sound incredibly well, and so was silent enough she could hear the faint ringing in her ears from the damage that constant gunfire had done to her hearing over time. It always made her uncomfortable when things were that quiet, so just after breakfast alone, eaten while sitting on the main kitchen counter because she refused to allow any of the staff to cook for her, she had made her way to the training room which doubled as a sort of family gallery, both for art but also for relics and remnants from the glory days.</p><p>For a thousand years the Vale family had forged and constructed weapons for the kings and queens of Mistral and eventually the new kingdom, modernising with the times when swords and shields had turned to firearms, and wagons had turned to airships and tanks. As the largest arms manufacturer on the continent, they handled the entirety of the official Mistral military contracts and commissions, and it had made them absurdly wealthy.</p><p>But while there were certainly relics to denote the history of the family’s claim to fame, that wasn’t the legacy that the training room was dedicated towards.</p><p> </p><p>Driving her fists into the training bag hanging from the ceiling, Lillian relished in the sound of the heavy impacts as she practically left dents in the bag, her immense physical strength developed by, and for, carrying around her own weight when in diamond form, and she kept her eyes opened and fixed on the brown leather covering on the bag as she went, unwilling to close her eyes and for her mind to show her sights from the other night.</p><p>Her swords were nearby in their display case, along with her armour, right in their place alongside the three dozen other cases holding the uniforms from Vale fighters both past and present, with only one case dedicated to fighters who were still alive to use their gear at all.<br/>Hers.<br/>That was their legacy.</p><p>The best fighters in Vale, each case dedicated to a champion of city combat both past and present. The strongest fighter from each generation was even the one named heir or heiress, and her old brother still hadn’t forgiven her for surpassing him despite being five years his junior.</p><p> </p><p>History said that the first Vale weapon had been forged for the protector of the queen, also a Vale, because no other weapon suited their level of strength and skill so the family themselves had been forced to forge a weapon that was worthy. That first sword was in the very first display case, and while it would be considered archaic and basic by modern standards it was still a beautiful weapon, holding a razor edge even after nine centuries.</p><p>Now even though the family business mass-produced firearms, airships, explosives, and had even been gradually constructing naval ports to begin work on a Mistral navy, the champions of Vale still hand-forged and crafted their weapons themselves, not allowed to utilise the knowledge and resources of the specialists and weapon experts that worked for them. But Lillian hadn’t minded much, it meant that no-one had been able to be criticised by her parents when she’d chosen a simplistic style;<br/>A simple pair of hardlight-dust infused longswords that could click together into a double-bladed sword, which could also shift form into a medium-distance rifle which took dust-bullets instead of energy ammunition.</p><p> </p><p>In a way it was an homage to the family history, and in another way it was to spite her parents by not taking advantage of the true might of the family resources. Besides, she liked swords.<br/>The elegance and symbolism behind them. To attack and protect from close range with nothing but skill, luck, and determination. Sword against sword, it very rarely came down to whose weapon was fancier or more expensive, that counted for very little when blades clashed.</p><p>Rich or poor, advanced or simple, swords made fights fair.</p><p> </p><p>Pausing in her punching, she rested her hands on either side of the bag as she bit her lip and finally let herself think a few thoughts about Beacon, especially about Shina. A swordsman like herself, his blade hadn’t had a ranged application at all, so she’d made sure not to even attempt to use her own. The man had been an incredible fighter, and she could tell that he approached fighting a similar way to how she did. And when he’d started to lose, he hadn’t seemed to mind, not on an emotional or personal level, and he hadn’t protested or had wounded pride when he’d needed help from his teammate. It had warmed her up to him immediately.</p><p>Even Lucy still had her pride hurt when she needed to ask Lily for help in fights sometimes.</p><p>And, from everything she'd seen and heard about, Shina was a good team leader.</p><p>All in all, he was a good guy, fights reveal that about a person.</p><p> </p><p>Finding him broken and dying during the battle of Beacon had scared her deeply, and when she’d been told he’d likely survive she’d felt a fierce wave of relief. If he was truly going to be okay, she doubted he’d stay out of the fight.</p><p>After all, <em> she </em>wouldn’t.</p><p>It meant there was a chance they’d see each other again.</p><p>She hoped so. They’d really need SKTC’s help.</p><p>Resting her head against the bag and finally closing her eyes, she accepted a harsh reality that had been understood while unspoken.;In the fights to come, they’d need all the help they could get.</p><p>Whatever war was happening that they hadn’t known about, it was going to come to Haven.</p><p>It only made sense.</p><p> </p><p>She was snapped out of her thoughts when the doors to the training room opened and the voices of two people stepped in, and she glanced over to watch as her father Lucas entered with one of his personal assistants. Noticing her in the room, Lucas gave a frown and a nod of approval as they made eye contact.</p><p>“Already back to training. That’s my girl.”</p><p>“Just needed to vent the energy, sir.” Lily gave a disciplined look as she turned to face him properly, her hands by her sides politely.</p><p>“Good. Beacon was a sign of things to come, and any free time you have should become training time, even moreso than usual. Mistral needs you at your best, young lady. And your defeat at the tournament was...<em> unexpected </em>.”</p><p>“I know sir. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Nodding to accept her genuine apology, Lucas turned to his assistant. “Send word to Professor Incenta that he is to send over the analysis of Lillian’s combat footage to the <em> family </em>server as soon as it is compiled. We must know what her weaknesses still are.”</p><p>“Of course, Mr Vale.” The assistant immediately took out a scroll to make the phone call and stepped out of the room, leaving just the father and daughter alone.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was a strikingly handsome man, just like Lillian was a beautiful girl, but where her eyes were slightly sharper and thinner, his were rounder and softer. But that didn’t change how his demeanor came across.</p><p>Watching the assistant leave, Lillian then turned back to her father and gave a small smile and nod, getting a smile back. “What can I do for you, father?”</p><p>“Just swinging by to grab some files that <em> your brother forgot </em> to bring along. And I took the opportunity to come looking for <em> you </em>in fact. Professor Lionheart wishes to speak to you and was hoping you were free. Get dressed appropriately and report to the Academy.”</p><p>“Yes sir. Is he aware that my team leader is currently out of the city and unavailable?”</p><p>“He is, but it is not your <em> team </em>he wishes to see. Just you.” Lucas narrowed her eyes slightly as he said it, clearly trying to figure out what the meeting could be about, and he folded his hands behind his back. “Whatever he needs, you will provide.”</p><p>Nodding and mimicking his stance, putting her hands behind her back, Lillian gave him as disciplined and reassuring nod as she could.</p><p>“I will.”</p><p> </p><p>Humming in satisfaction, Lucas gave her one last lingering look as he turned to leave again, and his eyes flashed in disapproval for a moment. “Your absence from the vigil was noticed, Lillian. Team LAVA came back intact, it would have been good for morale to see the four of you there. But...I do know you four, and I hope that whatever the four of you did instead helped with what you’re going through.”</p><p>Sighing and deflating slightly, knowing that being called her name meant things could be informal, she slowly made her way over to him from the training bag and let her father pull her into a comforting hug.</p><p>Hesitating as she swallowed down a lump, she closed her eyes and put her forehead on his shoulder. “It...hurts, dad.”</p><p>“I know, my gem. I know. It always does.” Sighing sadly, Lucas hugged her tightly and pressed a kiss to the top of her head softly. “We <em> must </em>be strong, for what is to come. And not just for ourselves, but for the kingdom.”</p><p>Nodding in understanding, Lily straightened up again and smiled when Lucas placed his hand on her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“You are the strongest Vale in generations, Lillian. So it is up to you to stand against what threatens our home, our people, our <em> friends, </em>and protect them.”</p><p>“I will. I won’t let you down, dad.” Lily nodded, putting her hand up on his own one on her shoulder and interlacing their fingers. “I’ll get better.”</p><p>“The fact you know that you must, is enough for me to know you will be alright. It would only be if you stopped training, stopped improving, that I would fear you would let what happened break you and beat you. But, you <em> are </em>my unbreakable gem.”</p><p>Smiling softly at him, she let her hand shimmer and turn to crystal, and he chuckled before squeezing her fingers. “That’s my girl.”</p><p> </p><p>Releasing each other’s hand, Lucas straightened back up and she did the same, and he gave her a final nod before leaving properly. “Report to Professor Lionheart, as soon as you can.”</p><p>“Yes sir. I’ll get dressed.”</p><p>“I will tell your driver to wait outside.”</p><p>Hesitating, almost going to protest and insist that she could walk, Lily knew it was a losing battle and so she simply nodded to his back, following him so she could head to her room. “Thank you, sir.”</p><p>“The three of us will likely be working late tonight, with plenty of meetings ahead of us. Good luck with your training, if I know you I wager you’ll still be going when we get home and we shall collect you for a late supper.”</p><p>“That sounds nice, father.” Lily gave another unseen nod as she split away from him to head to the stairs, while Lucas began to speak in low tones with his assistant again as they made their way to the massive front doors.</p><p> </p><p>Quickly making her way to her room, she closed her eyes in a sigh as she closed the door behind herself and leant back against it, taking in a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. She knew she had a duty, and she would do it to the best of her ability. The Vales were the protectors of Mistral.<br/>While her father was retired so he could run the company alongside her civilian mother, her uncle and brother were both still Huntsmen. But she was stronger than them both which meant that the dynasty was hers to maintain. Raising her hand so she could look at it, she turned it into crystal again, finding a degree of comfort in the shimmering sound as skin cells turned to diamond and clicked together perfectly, and she clenched her fist. Whatever threw itself against her home, it would break against her.</p><p>Thinning her lips as she reassured herself, as it grounded her, she returned her hand to skin and proceeded to get dressed, removing her simple training clothes and, after a very quick shower to remove sweat, dressed neatly in a white oxford button-up, formal black trousers, and her normal silver tailcoat she wore to meetings and events with her diamond sigil embroidered on the back.</p><p>It was tight so it didn’t get caught on things, and short enough that the tails didn’t billow behind her like an obnoxious cloak, but it was still the sort of semi-formal regalia that she needed to wear as a Vale.</p><p>Frankly she’d prefer being in her armour, and while that normally would have been acceptable as well since she was the heiress, her armour was still damaged from the battle and so wasn’t in any state to be worn to meetings. Looking at herself in the mirror as she quickly tied her short blonde hair back and neatened it as much as possible, and she sighed at her reflection for a few moments before belting her pants with a tidy black belt that had an ornate sheath on it, and hurried down to the training room to take a single one of her swords and sheath it on her waist, forbidden from leaving the estate unarmed.</p><p>Ever.</p><p> </p><p>Making her way to the door, she made sure to close and lock it behind her as she left, the estate needing to be sealed while none of the family were home to protect it. Her driver, Troy, the youngest and friendliest of the family drivers and assistants, opened the door for her and she smiled at him fondly as she hopped in.</p><p>“Morning Troy, how’s things?”</p><p>“Hey Lily.” He smiled at her as he slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at her through the rear-view mirror. “Long night. Heva’s getting <em> so </em>sick as she gets closer to the date. You? You look exhausted.”</p><p>“Always so charming.” Lily raised an eyebrow playfully as she then exaggeratedly checked her nails for a few moments, eventually sighing and deflating. “You know a way to a girl’s heart. But, yeah. Not...sleeping well”</p><p>Silent for a few moments as he drove the way out of the estate and onto the streets of Haven, Troy spoke quietly. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, man. But you know you can call if you ever need anything.”</p><p>“I know...and, thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>They were around the same age, with Troy only being a year older, and despite their dynamic as employer and employee she did consider him by far her best friend apart from her team, and she knew the feeling was mutual. As a snake faunus much like Alice was, Troy was sharp-featured and his animal traits made it impossible to really tell his age, but his demeanor and enthusiasm had given it away the moment they had met.<br/>Clicking insanely well almost instantly, she had insisted to her father that he become her personal driver and assistant when needed, and despite Lucas’ concerns that her teenage daughter spending great deals of time around a handsome young man would lead to...problems, he’d relented underneath her determined gaze. Besides, Lily never asked for much, she was content with what she was given and always fiercely determined to do what she had to do, so she more than deserved to ask for that sort of favour every now and again.</p><p>Granted, a few months later his concerns about the two of them had been proven valid, but only for a brief few weeks until the two had decided that friendship was the better suited option as being forced to sneak around had made both of them insecure. A year and a bit later, Troy was married, and now with a pregnant wife.</p><p>Meanwhile Lillian was the champion of Haven Academy, and the heiress of Vale.</p><p>It suited them both just fine, and Lily had even been the Best Woman for him at his wedding, a memory she cherished, with a framed photo of the two of them and the rest of the groomsmen on display in her room. When Troy had at one point during a drive to the corporate headquarters said that he’d thrown the idea to Heva about Lillian possibly being their son’s godmother, she’d almost burst into tears.</p><p> </p><p>The drive to Haven Academy passed with casual conversation, Troy clearly making sure to keep the topics friendly and amusing, and he did so well that when she was hopping out of the car she was smiling, and he gave her a fond wink as she stretched and gently closed the door with her foot.</p><p>Turning to the large and beautiful academy campus archway, the academy likely almost entirely out with class not in session, and likely not back in session for quite a long time since all the Professors were currently out on the frontlines as redeployed Huntsmen, she made her way towards the main doors of the school just in time for a man and woman to leave it, walking side by side silently.</p><p>The man was tall and wiry, with a neatly trimmed mustache and sharp eyes, dressed in a well-kept suit with a crimson vest over a yellow shirt and a gorgeous tailcoat. Meanwhile the woman next to him was extraordinarily pale, with long black hair and stand-out green eyes, dressed in layers of gorgeous black and silver leathers that would function in combat as well as be formal.</p><p>Both of them flicked their eyes to her as she walked past, clearly recognising her, and even as the girl looked familiar to Lillian she waved it from her mind once they were both out of eyesight, catching the academy door as it was automatically swinging closed behind the duo. Stepping inside, she paused as she felt eyes on her back and she glanced over her shoulder to see the pale woman looking at her over her own shoulder, and the woman merely gave Lillian a nod before catching up to the man.</p><p>Frowning as alarms went off in her mind, Lily closed the academy door behind her as she stepped into the expectedly empty and quiet campus, keeping her hands by her sides as she quickly made her way to Lionheart’s office, stopping outside the door when she heard the sounds of manic movement coming from inside. Raising her eyebrows for a few moments in concern, she knocked politely and waited, knowing the man would finish whatever he was fiddling with before he answered the door. But she wasn’t expecting the crash of some sort of flinch in reaction to her knocking. A few moments later, the noise quietened and his voice called out.</p><p>“Come in? Come in!”</p><p> </p><p>Putting her hand on the doorknob, Lily opened the door slowly and calmly as she stepped in and closed it behind her, giving a welcoming smile to the man as he acknowledged her from over where he was fiddling and trying to clean up a tea tray, where he had clearly dropped a cup for it so smash on the floor.</p><p>“Oh! Miss Lillian! Thank you for coming.” Leo gave her a stressed smile as he finished cleaning up the broken ceramic, a nervous panic in his eyes and his hands shaking as he worked, collecting the broken pieces and dropping them into his small office bin.</p><p>“Is this a bad time, sir?” Lillian straightened up with discipline and folded her hands behind her back, standing at attention.</p><p>Shaking his head and giving her a strained smile, Leo wiped his hands free of the ceramic dust and gestured for her to one of the chairs on the other side of his desk, and she quickly made her way over to stand at attention and wait politely</p><p>Noting her perpetual disciplined behaviour, a small flicker of sadness went through his eyes for a moment, along with a look that was almost a mixture of guilt and regret, but it vanished just as quickly and he sat down at his desk, folding his hands on the surface of it.</p><p>“How are you coping, Miss Lillian? Are you recuperating well?”</p><p>“I wasn’t injured in the battle, sir. I’m still at full form, but I’ve started training to remove whatever weaknesses led to my defeat in the tournament itself.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment as he regarded her, Leo knew by now to give up any chance of checking on the emotional state of the girl. Whilever in his presence, she never relaxed. Always at attention, with discipline and composure.</p><p>She was a Vale, through and through.</p><p>And that was part of the problem he now had to deal with.</p><p> </p><p>“What I’ve called you here to discuss, is that Grimm numbers are increasing at an exuberant rate down in the southern territories, and the reinforcements there are deeply outnumbered. I intend on speaking to Miss’s Alice and Angel, and recalling Miss Lucille. I would like to put your team out into the field to reinforce that territory.”</p><p>Pausing as she thought over it, Lily had to resist the instinct to narrow her eyes. All the student teams were decommissioned until things calmed down and the Academy properly reopened, and they were completely forbidden from going on any missions at all.</p><p>Including LAVA. In fact as veterans of the Battle Of Beacon, they were expected to end up going through full psychiatric evaluation before returning to training.</p><p>“...we’re out of duty, sir. All of the students are. Council’s orders.”</p><p>Nodding, having expected that answer, Lionheart sighed and lowered his eyes down to his desk as if in shame, before he steeled them and looked back up at her. “That is why I would like to do this <em> without </em> the council’s permission. We need Huntsmen in the field, Miss Lillian. People are dying.”<br/>Seeing her hesitate again, Leo decided he had to play the most powerful card he had against the girl, knowing she’d fold immediately. So he pinned her with a firm look.</p><p>“It is the duty of Huntsmen to protect people, Miss Vale. I believe your team leader will agree, and the four of you could do a lot of good. I don’t want you <em> trapped </em>in the city while you have the chance to do what you’ve trained for.”</p><p> </p><p>Lillian was silent as she thought over it, knowing he was right. Two and a half years left until graduation, and then she would have been able to be out in the field already anyway. But instead, as a student, she was trapped inside the city walls, helpless to watch the wounded and desperate pour into the city in a constant stream while knowing that even more people were straight-up dying.</p><p>While she could help protect them if she was just allowed to do her duty.</p><p>Nodding slowly, she kept her composure intact as her hands tightened in their grip on each other behind her back. “If my team leader agrees and gives the order, I’ll report for duty. You have my word.”</p><p>“Thank you, Miss Lillian.” Instead of looking relieved, a flash of guilt went across Lionheart’s face again. “You’re one of the strongest students we’ve seen in decades. You could do a lot of good. The southern territories need help. So, thank you.”</p><p>“Of course, sir.”</p><p>“Once Miss Lucille has returned to the city, I’m sure she’ll contact you. Until then…”</p><p>“You know where to find me, sir.”</p><p> </p><p>Giving the man a polite nod, Lillian turned on her heel and left the man’s office, texting Troy to be outside for her to leave, knowing he was likely lingering nearby already.</p><p> </p><p>Despite the strange feeling in her stomach from the meeting and what Lionheart had asked, she did agree with him. The Huntsmen of Mistral had been accumulating more and more fatalities in recent months, and the southern territories were by far the most dangerous. So it wasn’t surprising that the defensive lines there were failing to deal with every grimm that arose.<br/>It was her duty to protect the people, what she was training for, so if doing her job meant going against the council, breaking the law, she’d do it, and she knew her family would approve.</p><p>Stepping out of the front doors, she looked out over the view of the city, with the academy being at the top level and providing a spectacular view down the mountainside and the hundreds of buildings and thousands of trees, along with the great waterfalls and rivers that wound through the city.</p><p>It was her duty, her job, to protect it. And she knew that she could.</p><p>Raising her hand in front of her, she once again turned it to diamond and clenched her fist, finding comfort and confidence in how it felt, before relaxing and turning it back.</p><p>Once Lucille gave the word, she’d be ready.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile, back in his office, Leonardo put his head in his hands as he rested his elbows on his desk, his breath laboured and heavy as thoughts and fears rushed through his mind and made him shiver in confusion and anxiety.</p><p>He had his orders, and while he’d been obeying for months he had to go faster, he only had three months left to get rid of as many Huntsmen as possible.</p><p>And Lillian Vale had to be next.</p><p> </p><p>Even on her own she was scarily strong, and if she was on the streets of her city, her home turf, when it was time for Haven to burn? She’d be a grave threat.</p><p>And when alongside her <em> team </em>? It was unquestionable that they had to go. Team LAVA were Haven Academy’s pride.</p><p>Their golden children.</p><p> </p><p>They’d do anything for their home.</p><p>And on Salem’s orders, Leo had to make sure they died for it.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Team LAVA aren't going to factor greatly into this story at first, not really PROPERLY appearing until Team RNJR reach Haven (obviously), but I'll pepper in what they're up to and going through every now and then.<br/>Meanwhile Cypher is set up for the 2 month timejump between volumes 3-4!</p><p>The pace on this story is going to be quite a bit faster than part one, if I can manage it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Pieces</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The trip through the ruins of Vale is slow, dangerous, and filled with tests and trials that even when succeeded require Chrystal and Neo to leave parts of themselves behind like footprints in sand. If they ever reach safety, they won't make it intact.<br/>And they aren't so sure anymore that they'll care.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS ONE:</p><p>Non-graphic F/F smut that doubles as LIGHT non-graphic sexual/psychological torture, which is started by an instance of sexual violence. It's not meant to be sexy to read. Just warning y'all beforehand.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With the sun moving across the sky at a troublesome pace, showing they were making terrible time, Chrystal and Neo did their best to navigate through the streets of the city at as fast a speed that they could manage. While they were able to avoid Grimm easily enough, they couldn’t always stay out of conflict with the roving looters and clusters of White Fang that were still prowling the city and trying to make the best out of a bad situation by looting everything and killing everyone they could find.</p><p>Plenty of times they could have easily slipped past, but it had been just after midday when the pair of them had passed over one of the central streets in the commercial district and heard laughing voices, and it wasn’t kind laughter. Leaping onto the same rooftop, they both paused and glanced at each other before looking over at the source of the noise in unspoken unison, narrowing their eyes to try and get a view through the smashed roof and window of the basic convenience store currently being looted.</p><p>They were still close enough to the crashed ship that plenty of the roving thugs had decent rifles and weapons that they’d looted from around the wreckage, so the pair were careful to hide and not be seen. While it would be an easy fight, they both knew that there was <em> no such thing </em>as a guaranteed victory, but all cautious instinct shattered when most of the group of thugs emerged from the store. Chrystal watched as Neo went entirely rigid and her grip on her parasol tightened in a vice-like grip, and the girl’s eyes went from their normal brown and pink to a furious burning red, with swirling black tendrils within it.</p><p>Blinking in surprise at the terrifying change in demeanor, Chrystal followed the girl’s gaze, and when she glanced at the thugs that had left the store and were lingering on the street, and she saw that one of them was wearing a very unique and recognisable bowler hat.</p><p> </p><p>Letting out her held breath in understanding, Chrystal knew there was no chance of talking Neo out of what was coming, so instead she merely drew both of her blades so that there would be no loud gunfire to draw in grimm or surrounding trouble, as they had no way of knowing if the group had friends nearby. Noticing that she had drawn her weapons, clearly in acceptance of what Neo wanted to do, Neo’s eyes flicked to hers and a small glint of furious gratitude went through her.<br/>
Wetting her lips, Chrystal started to move, silently leaping and flipping from building to building as she quickly made her way around so she could cross the street and climb up onto the roof of one of the nearby shops, then silently moving over so she was on the roof of the right shop, directly above the five men who had exited. And she could easily hear the sound of more of them inside, shoving food supplies into bags and arguing about what to prioritise.</p><p> </p><p>Half a minute later, nowhere near as fast, Neo slid down next to her and gave her a scowl for leaving her behind, but her usual frustration was squashed and overridden by her anger and desperation, so instead of continuing her glare she simply flicked the blade out of her parasol and glanced at Chrystal, who crouched right on the edge of the roof and waited for Neo to move first.</p><p>The mute girl dropped, her feet driving one man to the ground as she landed in a roll, and piercing the tip of her blade deep into the heart of the man wearing Roman’s hat, just as Chrystal shot down from the roof as well, each blade going through the back of one of the men before she brutally twisted her wrists to dislodge her blades while also slicing deep, and then driving her foot into the chest of the last upright man, sending him sprawling backwards so she could simply throw one of her blades into his chest as he fell, before doing the same to the man Neo had kicked down.</p><p>It had taken less than ten seconds, and it hadn’t made a sound. As she pulled her parasol out of the man’s chest and he dropped, she scooped Roman’s hat from his head on his way down, and she held it in her hand reverently. The red from her eyes faded and were replaced with their usual brown and pink and she held the hat to her chest, closing her eyes tight.</p><p>Watching quietly, Chrystal stepped forward and almost put her hand on the girl’s shoulder to comfort her, before catching herself and faltering, instead quickly pulling her blades out of the men she’d thrown them into and flicking them to remove the excess blood. Walking back towards the still standing Neo, she glanced through the cracked doorway and thought of the men inside.</p><p>“Come on... We’ve gotta move.”</p><p> </p><p>Snapping out of her daze, Neo looked up from the hat in her grip and into Chrystal’s eyes, unblinking and frozen for a moment before she simply nodded numbly, following Chrystal at a stumbling but still quick pace as they fled back across the street and into the safety of another building where Neo stopped and put her parasol back on her hip so she could hold his hat in both hands and look down at it.</p><p>Stroking the firm fabric softly, Neo silently whimpered and closed her eyes as confirmation of what she’d already known came crashing onto her. Coughing out a furious sob, the anger wrapping around what she was afraid of feeling and hiding it from her, she clutched the hat to her chest tightly and squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her jaw. Watching her for a moment, Chrystal sheathed one of her blades and drew one of her guns before stepping away to give her privacy and to keep watch, buying her some time.</p><p>But she wasn’t sure how much she’d be able to get her.</p><p> </p><p>Every sound was silent as Neo coughed to get rid of another lump in her gut, her reflex being to deny what she was feeling and box it away, but it wasn’t possible this time as she felt a tear leak down her cheek and drop onto the black fabric in her hands, one tear was followed by another, and no matter how hard she clenched her jaw she couldn’t stop them. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, the world rushing around her without her notice as she hugged the hat to her chest.<br/>
In that moment, she realised that she was alone now. There was no-one left, not without him. Roman hadn’t just been her rock, he’d been her best friend, her boss, her compass. The light that kept her out of the true darkness, that had held her and given her ice-cream after every nightmare when she was younger.</p><p>Nightmares of a pitch dark room, that threatened to swallow her whole.</p><p>Right now, despite it being the middle of the day, she felt that darkness again as a void was opened up within herself now that he was gone. And she hadn’t been there when he’d needed her the most.</p><p>The Rose girl had separated her from him, and now he was gone, and she was alone.</p><p> </p><p>A faint sound was in her ears, but the world was so crushingly loud and dark around her, her eyes still squeezed shut, that she couldn’t pick out a single individual detail apart from the tears going down her cheeks, the pain in her heart, and the fabric underneath her touch. It was getting too much. She had failed him. He’d saved her, and when it was her turn to return the favour he’d failed her, and because of that she was alone now.<br/>
With the thought hitting her almost like a physical force, her knees wobbled underneath her and she dropped, but just before she hit the ground she was caught in a strong pair of arms that were there just in time, wrapping around her and lowering her to the ground gently instead of letting her crash down painfully.</p><p>Without opening her eyes, she allowed herself to be cradled as she cried and clutched her friend’s hat to her chest, feeling her Semblance sparking and likely changing her appearance all over the place as her feelings and thoughts rushed around without staying or defining themselves.</p><p>The person holding her in her tears just like <em>he</em> used to didn’t smell like Roman, and they weren’t as bulky, and they were in leathers except for his normal shirts and jacket, but it was good enough as she curled up and let herself cry as every cell in her body was forced to accept that she was alone once again, just like she’d been when she was twelve and starving, but now the world was larger and scarier, and there weren’t even streets to wander.</p><p>Freezing in surprise when a hand cradled her head and pulled her into a tighter embrace, she relaxed into it even as the different scent was more obvious, and she was suddenly aware of curves where she wasn’t used to being held by someone with them. She may have had ‘company’ in the past but none had ever held her like this. It was nice, if not as comforting as when Roman had looked after her.</p><p>Sighing into the touch as the tears gradually stopped, her grip on the hat relaxed slightly but she still clutched it closely and lovingly.</p><p>When fingers began to hesitantly, almost nervously, stroke through her hair it was as if the rushing noise and crushing darkness around her and inside of her began to quieten and move away, each slow stroke brushing away what was crushing her in a vice and bringing her back, and after another couple of minutes she finally found that she was able to open her eyes again, blinking in surprise when she looked up into the brown eyes of Chrystal, the girl holding her tightly while still looking around them, keeping a constant eye on their surroundings even as she held Neo to protect her and comfort her, cradling her on her lap and stroking her hair.</p><p> </p><p>The moment she came back to herself and she realised exactly what was happening, Neo immediately shuffled and rolled off, a rush of anxiety and vulnerable fear going through her gut as she bounced to her feet and pressed her back against a wall. Giving her a gentle smile, Chrystal rose to her feet, grabbing the blade and gun she’d dropped when she’d had to catch Neo and sliding them away onto her back.</p><p>“Good to have you back.”</p><p>Staring at her with wide and shocked eyes, her defenses attempting to go up but not currently able to, Neo’s mouth opened and closed a few times pointlessly as she looked down at the hat and then back up to Chrystal, who was keeping a soft and understanding expression on her face even as it was clear she was still keeping a lot of her attention on their surroundings.</p><p>“Take another minute or so, but we do need to get moving if we want to make it to the Lodgens Way corner by nightfall.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding slowly and numbly, Neo looked down at the hat for a few more moments before hesitating and shakily lifting it to put it on her own head, knowing she wouldn’t be able to run and fight with it in her hands. Squeezing her eyes shut as she placed it on her hair, she immediately let it go and clutched her hands to her chest, the alien feeling of the binding on her head sending waves of both reassurance and also agonising grief through her. She froze again when gentle hands touched either side of the hat to readjust it so it sat on her head securely and properly and she opened her eyes in surprise to see Chrystal right in front of her and appraising the hat on her head with a studious eye and a gentle touch, adjusting the angle of it again and raising a critical eye as she took in how it sat, before smiling and nodding in approval.</p><p>“It looks good on you. Brings out the pink.” Chrystal met her eyes with the approving smile, and in her vulnerable state Neo couldn’t help but flush a bit in warmth and smile weakly back, control and focus returning to her.</p><p>Chrystal’s grounding comfort had worked, and as Neo straightened up as her mind cleared up, at least for now, she nodded in gratitude to the girl who had helped and held her only a day after trying to kill her, and Chrystal gave a small smile back as she rolled her shoulders and got ready to keep moving.<br/>
As they went to keep moving, Neo grabbed Chrystal’s shoulder to get her attention and spin her back to face her.</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>
  <em> “Are -you- okay?” </em>
</p><p>“...yeah. Why do you ask?” Chrystal’s eyes flickered with something she quickly squashed down, and Neo’s expression softened.</p><p>
  <em> “...you just killed for...me.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Not responding for quite a few moments, standing still and simply looking at Neo with an unreadable expression, Chrystal took in a deep breath that she let out slowly before giving a simple and guarded nod and turning away again, not replying until Neo couldn’t see her face.</p><p>“It’s fine. Let’s just go.”</p><p> </p><p>The girl’s voice was deadened, and there wasn’t a single twitch or tremor in her movement. Neo looked at her back for a moment and felt the urge to reach out and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, but she squashed it and simply stepped up next to her and nodded without looking over at her, and Chrystal jogged forward again without another word.<br/>
She wouldn’t speak again until the next time they stopped in their journey, late enough in the afternoon that the shadows were growing long and the Grimm growing more active. The two of them were sticking to the rooftops and the upper floors of buildings as much as possible as they moved in order to avoid being on the increasingly infested streets, the Grimm below silently sniffing and prowling about.</p><p>Which is why they both stopped when they heard growling on a nearby street, which then grew to snarling and the pounding of clawed feet as grimm ran in pursuit of someone. Neo didn’t have time to even look at her before Chrystal changed direction, the instincts of a Huntsman overriding every other sense that Chrystal had and pushing her towards whoever was in danger, her hands going to her blades.</p><p>It was already the sound of combat before she reached the source, and a crackle of broken aura was followed by a shrill scream and the faintest crunch of broken bones as Chrystal finally reached the right building and leapt down from it, drawing her blades as she shot through the air and slicing down into one of the sabyrs with her full might, looking over as one had its prey in its mouth and was tossing it around, the person coughing out shrill whimpers of pain as bones cracked and they couldn’t bring in enough air to scream.</p><p>Firing forward, Chrystal skewered the monster easily, kicking the third in the head and in a simple flurry reduced the three remaining monsters into dust, clearing out the hunting pack just as Neo dropped to the ground and closed her parasol again, having used it to slow her fall.</p><p>Looking around the street for any other sign of danger, Chrystal was satisfied before running back along it where the victim was lying, whimpering and bleeding from several vicious wounds and coughing out whimpers from torn lungs, their ribs broken enough that the bone had ripped gashes and they were bleeding internally and losing the ability to breathe.</p><p>Dropping to her knees next to the person, Chrystal’s heart went into her throat as she recognised them.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh gods…” </p><p> </p><p>Her eyes widened and a cold chill went over her skin as she looked down at the suffering and shivering young form of Reika, the girl whimpering in agony with broken bones and a collapsed chest, eyes wide as she was held on the edge of shock. But her eyes focused enough that they glimmered in recognition when she saw Chrystal, and her mouth opened and closed slightly a few times, her eyes managing to blink.</p><p>Coughing out a shocked and unprocessing sob, Chrystal looked down at the girl helplessly, unsure what to do and on the edge of panic. If Reika was alone, that must have meant that the rest of RNBW…<br/>
And her aura had broken so easily. She must have been running and fighting to the point of <em>exhaustion</em>.</p><p>She didn’t have anyone to watch over her as she rested, like Chrystal and Neo did.</p><p>Widened eyes started to go dry as Chrystal looked down at the girl, her hands shaking and clenching weakly as she took in all the girl’s state. Even as she kept looking and trying to think, she knew there was nothing she could do. Between the girl’s broken chest and torn lungs, her butchered right leg, and a savage wound in her neck…</p><p>“I...Reika, I…” Chrystal whimpered, placing her hand on the girl’s cheek, coughing out another sob at how cold she already was and the fact that Reika managed to lean into the touch slightly.</p><p> </p><p>Seeming to know her own fate, Reika was terrified, her lip quivering even as her face slowly paled, and her eyes began to gently leak tears as she continued the process of dying a slow and agonising death.<br/>
Chrystal snapped out of her frozen panic when a hand was placed on her shoulder, and without taking her hand from Reika’s cheek she looked up at Neo, who was giving her a serious but compassionate look, acceptance in her eyes.</p><p>“I…” Chrystal looked down at Reika, and then back up to Neo. “I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment as they held eye contact, Neo gave her a thin-lipped look with eyes that said what she didn’t need sign-language to convey.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Yes you do…’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Eyes widening, Chrystal looked down at Reika again with horrified eyes, no longer dry but instead leaking soft tears down her cheeks as her breaths came in rapid and shallow. Whimpering helplessly, she gently stroked Reika’s cheek as the small girl coughed again, blood dripping from the side of her mouth as another wheeze came through. Shedding another tear, Reika’s eyes slowly went from terrified and broken, to resignation, and her skin noticeably paled further as she stared into Chrystal’s eyes and gave an almost imperceptible nod.</p><p>Her breath catching in horror, Chrystal shook her head violently.</p><p>“I can’t. I can’t. No...I...<em> Reika </em>…” She couldn’t help but sob out the girl’s name, tears coming out fast enough that instead of just running down Chrystal’s cheeks they dropped down onto the paling and twitching body of the girl beneath her touch.</p><p>When Neo squeezed Chrystal’s shoulder again to get her attention, Chrystal looked up at her with broken and wide eyes.</p><p>Giving her a compassionate look, Neo sucked in a breath. <em> “If you can't do it, I can." </em></p><p> </p><p>Panting out a rapid breath, Chrystal looked back down at Reika and then back at Neo, the girl beneath her whimpering out another mouthful of blood as her death approached agonisingly slowly, with nothing left but too many minutes of bleeding and coughing and the world gradually getting colder and scarier.</p><p>There was nothing else to do for her.</p><p>And all three of them knew it, Reika using some of the last of her strength to reach across with a horrifically weak left hand and taking Chrystal’s hand in hers to get her attention, with Chrystal immediately looking down at her again. Reika simply gave a terrified but resigned smile, and nodded.</p><p>“I…” With her face scrunching up in despair, Chrystal squeezed her eyes shut as her other hand shakily went up to the hilt of her blade, and she sobbed as quietly as she could as she drew it slowly and shuffled her position.</p><p>Readjusting Reika so she was cuddled up on her lap, Chrystal ran her fingers through the girl’s hair to brush them from her face, the sun having lowered enough in the time they’d been laying there that the shadows now covered them, and Chrystal gave a broken but kind smile as she looked into the girl’s eyes.</p><p>“You’re going to see your girls again, okay? Let’s get you back to them.” Her voice was soft, and as kind as she could force it to be. </p><p> </p><p>Cradling Reika upright enough she could get the best angle, she waited for Reika to close her eyes before pressing her lips to the girl’s forehead and sliding her blade through the suffering girl’s heart, catching her properly as her weight went dead and the last breath left her body. Chrystal immediately pulled the blade from the girl’s chest and dropped it away before wrapping both of her arms around her body and cuddling her close, sobbing violently, and the only way to muffle the noise was to bury her face into Reika’s armoured shoulder.</p><p>Neo watched silently, her hands down by her sides with nothing she could possibly say or do to fix anything or change anything that was happening. In all of her own years of desperation, <em> this </em>was something she’d never had to do. For the first time in a long time, someone in front of her was going through something she couldn’t imagine.</p><p>And it made her hurt.</p><p> </p><p>All she could think to do was reach down and place her hand back on Chrystal’s shoulder as comfortingly as she could while the other girl sobbed and practically screamed into the dead girl’s armour, the sound just muffled enough that Neo knew they weren’t in immediate danger, but it would only be a matter of minutes before the Grimm would be pulled in. With a tight grip and shivering muscles, Chrystal held Reika close as her tears began to subside, and she agonisingly slowly pulled back to look down at the girl. Reika’s body was broken, but her face looked peaceful, with the drops of Chrystal’s tears running through the drying blood on her pale skin.</p><p>Chrystal reverently laid the girl’s body down, numbly knowing the next part of this cruel reality she now lived in; they’d have to leave her body here.</p><p>There was no way to bury her or pass respect, and even if there was, they didn’t have time, she knew what her despair and grief was doing.</p><p>So instead they simply had to leave the girl here in the street and move on.</p><p>Adjusting the girl’s body so it was straightened out, she made sure to lay her so that if anyone <em> did </em>eventually get to this street in their searching, they’d be able to find her body easily enough to take with them, and maybe somehow either return it to any surviving family, or bury her with the respect she deserved. Still sobbing, but quieter now, Chrystal ran her fingers through Reika’s gorgeous hair some last few moments before she let her go, standing numbly and picking up her blade as she stood. Looking around for something to clean her blade with, she was surprised when Neo pulled a rag from her pocket that she clearly kept on hand for that exact purpose, and offered it to her.</p><p>Nodding numbly in thanks, Chrystal slowly and shakily wiped Reika’s blood from her blade before sheathing it again and handing the rag back to Neo, and looking away, for some reason looking up at the sky as if she was looking for something in particular, only to be disappointed yet again in her despair, and she looked back down at the ground again. Neo still had no idea how to help, Chrystal was someone who went through emotions and feelings to such unpredictable extremes that Neo had no idea how to help with them, and it made her feel strangely useless, and that uselessness threatened to lead to guilt before Neo snapped herself out of it before it properly reached that point.</p><p> </p><p>They had to move, and they had to move quickly, she could hear the sounds of movement nearby and she put a hand on Chrystal’s arm to snap her out of it, and it worked. Chrystal jerked back to awareness and without a word, or even a look, she leapt up onto the nearest rooftop and continued their journey, Neo gradually falling behind and only catching up when Chrystal stopped a block away to let her.</p><p>As Neo caught up with her, Chrystal was looking behind them in the direction of Reika, and Neo saw her mumble something under her breath, and most of it was a saying that Neo had read and heard before, but Chrystal changed the end.</p><p>
  <em> “For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my hand, honour thee.” </em>
</p><p>Waiting quietly as Chrystal closed her eyes for a few moments and schooled her expression again, Neo again didn’t know how to react. While she was more than familiar with brotherhood, honour was something she’d never had the privilege of. But before she could think of something, Chrystal’s eyes opened again and she looked to Neo briefly, before immediately having to drop to her knees and throw up. Her muscles shaking as her composure temporarily gave out, she stayed tense and rigid on her knees for several moments as she retched a few more times, but nothing came up, only having been able to eat light survival rations, but her body wanted to express its horror regardless.</p><p>Without the ability to retch, it vented itself as Chrystal brought her fist down onto the tiles of the roof, her aura sparking under the impact of her full strength and the tile cracking. Bringing her other fist back, she pounded down just as hard, before simply whaling onto the roof with her full strength and, before Neo could stop her, she let out a feral scream that vented all the darker feelings that couldn’t be shed through tears or simple words of honour.</p><p>The black ice that had been surrounding her heart and mind to protect it, providing a safe filter, finally shattered, and her rage and hatred and despair and emptiness poured out in her fists and her screaming that eventually dwindled into nothing, leaving her just on her knees swaying in emotional and mental exhaustion.</p><p>When she almost slumped entirely, which would have sent her rolling off the roof, it was Neo’s turn to catch her and pull her close, except instead of being frozen Chrystal immediately wrapped her arms around her and burrowed in. Without any tears left to cry, and too emotionally wiped to express any more dark despair, she simply stayed frozen in Neo’s embrace.</p><p> </p><p>Unsure exactly of what she was doing or able to do, Neo mimicked Chrystal’s actions from earlier while also repeating what Roman had done for her several times, and began to trace small circles on Chrystal’s back and run fingers through her hair gently. It seemed to work, and Chrystal gradually calmed, small strange tremors and spasms going through her body that had the tension and energy she was giving off change in drastic ways that Neo couldn’t understand.<br/>
So instead she simply held her until she was back to focus, just like Chrystal had done for her, and eventually Chrystal pulled back and straightened on her own knees. Giving Neo an unreadable nod of gratitude, Chrystal slowly stood and, with a blank face and dead voice, offered her hand down to Neo.</p><p>“Right. Let’s move.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding, Neo began to follow Chrystal again, knowing that the girl likely wouldn’t stop or speak again at all until it was time to camp for the night. Throughout their run, Chrystal’s expression mostly stayed entirely the same, but her eyes changed, alternating from broken and hollow to a wild and uncontrollable rage, and then almost a manic resignation. But the rest of her face stayed totally cool, and Neo found herself wondering how much practice it had taken to be able to hide that level of whirlwind.</p><p>At some point in one of her moments of staring, Chrystal caught her and locked eyes with her, the two of them simply staring at each other for a few moments mid-movement before Chrystal gave a small grim smile and looked forward again, speeding up.</p><p>An icy black energy the girl was leaving in the air had Neo briefly feel the need to put a hand on her parasol, before she realised that the despair and rage Chrystal was radiating wasn’t directed at <em> her </em>, not this time.</p><p> </p><p>But something or someone out there in the world was now in more danger than Neo thought they’d be able to comprehend in time to protect themselves from the wrath of the butterfly.</p><p>Feeling a thrill of dark electricity go through her, Neo’s eyes went sharp and she smirked in black anticipation for a moment, before speeding up to follow, the tall hotel that was their target campsite for the night already in view across the city. They had planned on getting there well before nightfall, but they’d lost a lot of time.</p><p>Now it was a race against the darkness.</p><p>Feeling the wild energy coming from Chrystal in front of her, as well as the sharp edges in her own heart, Neo suspected there were a few of those happening right now.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal looked up and out of the hole in the roof as the stars began to become visible in the sky. Smiling softly up at them, she didn’t notice when Neo watched her smile with a curious and thoughtful expression, eventually nudging her.</p><p>
  <em> “What’s got you smiling in a hell like this? After a day like that??” </em>
</p><p>Pausing for a moment as she thought over it, a strange weight lifted from her chest as she looked up at the skies above as the stars she used to watch every night up in the cliffs emerged and gave her the same reassurance they always did. Tapping her hands on her legs as she considered how best to explain, she gave into impulse and stood, gesturing with her head to Neo.</p><p>“Come with me.”</p><p> </p><p>Without waiting, Chrystal made her way over to a collapsed portion in the roof and hopped up, extended her hand down to grab Neo’s and lift her, the girl following out of curiosity. Slowly the two of them climbed up onto the roof of the building, far enough away from the fire that the stars were far more visible, a brief gap in the ash the ruins were still throwing into the air allowing them to see the constellations above. Smiling in satisfaction, Chrystal sat down with her back against a chunk of rubble so she could comfortably look up at the sky. Again, Neo curiously sank down next to her, frowning in absolute confusion as to Chrystal’s rapid and extreme change in mood, in her entire <em> demeanour </em>, yet again, and she was also slightly entranced by it. Chrystal gave her a smile and looked up.</p><p>“You ever stargazed?”</p><p>
  <em> “Not really? I never really got the chance as a kid, and once I was on the streets if I was outside at night it wasn’t to relax.” </em>
</p><p>“That’s...fair.” Chrystal frowned, giving her a sympathetic look before staring back up again and smiling again. “I used to spend as much time as possible up the cliffs back home, I’d spend whole nights up there staring at the sky.”</p><p> </p><p>Pointing up to a specific constellation, Chrystal nudged Neo so that the girl would follow her finger, and Neo did, looking up at a collection of stars that she didn’t see any particular shape in. And when Chrystal clearly realised it she giggled in amusement with an almost manic and wild tone to it, a sound that had Neo glance over at her.</p><p>“That one is called Nexus. Apparently it’s the constellation that helped the first astronomers realise that the planet was moving in space and not simply rotating on the one spot. The stars that birthed astronomy. So, Nexus.”</p><p>Chrystal smiled wider, and Neo found herself smiling slightly as well at the gentle and comforting enthusiasm that the girl clearly had for what she was talking about, and Neo found the warmth contagious. And she knew that the happier mood would make them invisible to the Grimm, especially compared to the breakages they’d suffered during the day, and their breakdowns the previous night, so she didn’t interrupt, instead following Chrystal’s finger when she pointed out another one, pointing straight up.</p><p>“That one’s called, I am dead serious, Atlas.” Chrystal smirked, looking over when Neo raised an eyebrow in confusion and amusement, waiting for Chrystal to explain. “Five stars in a unique position that we spin around. It’s like an axis, showing we rotate through the night sky even when the moon isn’t visible. Constant proof we spin on a fixed axis. Apparently the layout of the city of Atlas matches it? I’ve never been, not yet.”</p><p><em> “Why do you care about this stuff so much? It’s not exactly...useful.” </em>Neo winced when she used the last word, knowing how it might come across, but Chrystal didn’t react offended or bothered at the question, instead getting a pensive look that made it obvious she’d been asked the same question quite a lot.</p><p>To answer, Chrystal got a strangely soft and vulnerable look on her face and pointed out one last constellation, which even Neo had to admit was truly stunning.</p><p>“That one...is called the Butterfly.”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking, Neo looked to Chrystal and studied her, glancing over her armour knowing what she was looking for before placing her finger on a delicate butterfly imprinted onto the armour of Chrystal’s shoulder, her eyebrows raised in question. Chrystal nodded.</p><p>“It was the constellation I was looking at the night I decided not to eventually kill myself to join my parents and brother, and I’d instead find what I did best and...live doing it. Being the best version of myself I could be. That I’d give it a try. But I’m not there yet.” Chrystal sighed, her eyes closing as she looked away, and Neo felt a slight pang in her chest when she noticed a single tear escape from Chrystal’s eye and traced down the scar that shimmered in the moonlight.</p><p>When Chrystal opened her eyes again a few moments later and ran a sleeve over her face with a look of guarded shame, Neo asked her question.</p><p>
  <em> “Is that why your nickname is Chrysalis? The butterfly yet to emerge?” </em>
</p><p>Laughing wetly as it was said, Chrystal nodded with a sad smile and crossed her arms over her chest, looking back up at the stars and pointedly not looking at Neo for a few moments until she realised the mute girl wanted to say something.</p><p><em> “If you get out of here alive, I think you can make it.” </em> Neo gave a soft smile and a shrug, before gesturing to the entirety of Chrystal with raised eyebrows. <em> “Look at you.” </em></p><p>“Yeah. Look at me. A thief, now a killer...<em> quite </em> the killer, the past few days. A failure as a Huntsman because I couldn’t protect the academy, I lost the two people I love. I couldn’t even properly beat the girl I hunted for three months. Instead I had to kill an impossibly sweet girl who was a better Huntsman and a better <em>person</em> than either you or I could ever be.” Chrystal scoffed, and Neo didn’t even slightly take it personally being referred to as ‘hunted’, because frankly it was the appropriate term, and internally Neo thought that they’d done pretty amazingly.</p><p>If they’d had just a bit more time, they would have gotten her, and by extension gotten <em> all </em>of them. And clearly Chrystal knew that and it was part of what was killing her. So Neo simply looked at her silently, with no idea what to say or what to do, but she could feel Chrystal’s rising misery as the girl’s breathing began to become more laboured, and Chrystal rolled away.</p><p> </p><p>Sadly, without Chrystal knowing, her episodes and wild emotions were simply a part of her reputation, and Neo had heard of them. ‘Chrysalis’ was known as a great time who was a loose cannon. Who could be the happiest and wildest bit of fun in the club, but then be found sobbing wildly in the back alleys or standing on the edge of roofs looking down at streets far below.</p><p>But she was never judged for it. </p><p>She was too damn beloved in the city.</p><p> </p><p>If she was honest, Neo had really wanted to meet her just to hang out and see if it was true, but Junior’s club wasn’t in Roman’s territory, and she was one of Roman’s people while Chrysalis was generally considered one of Junior’s despite the fact she’d never actually done any work for the man. But their reputations would have been enough that interacting would have been dangerous, and so Neo had missed out on her chance to buy the local wild butterfly a drink or two.<br/>
So Neo watched as Chrystal began to cry quietly, clearly trying to smother it, and for the first time since it had all begun when Cinder had approached Roman all the way back at the beginning, Neo felt a small pang of <em> true </em>guilt and regret that she couldn’t stop this time. Looking around at the clearer view they had of the destruction around them, she felt an ache in her gut at the ruin her home had turned into. It was never meant to have gotten this bad, not truly, but eventually Roman had been in too deep to pull the brakes, and there was no way Neo was going to have betrayed him just to stop it all.</p><p>And now, because things had reached this point, her Roman was dead. She’d watched the airship explode and crash, and there’d been no safe way off of it except for that Ruby girl’s semblance. Everything was burning, her friends and allies in the city were dead, everything she had found warm and comforting was gone.</p><p>She knew she’d have to run, likely to the next safest place nearby to rest for a little bit at the safehouse Roman had kept in Istburn. Get a new ID, and...what was the next step?</p><p> </p><p>But for now, she needed to simply get out of here. Her home was a burning ruin that no longer belonged to the people who had both loved and hated it. Hell, whether or not she herself had loved or hated it had depended on the day. And looking at Chrystal, the girl sobbing into her elbow to try and hide it out of shame but also unable to stop, she saw that she was going through the same thing. Everything had been taken from her too, including her team who had left her for dead, and because of that she’d had to kill for three days and it was tearing her apart. </p><p>Neo was used to it, it’s what life on the streets had been like, and once she met Roman she’d ended up doing it professionally. But she still remembered how it felt when you first started.</p><p>Especially if you were like herself and Chrystal, because it was jaggedly clear to Neo that they were the same, which meant Chrystal was tearing herself apart about the fact it was getting easier every time, faster than her and the other students would have been prepared for.</p><p>So she was running away from facing it, from facing the quiet, even as she was running towards safety, and the contradiction had her dying inside.</p><p>Neo knew it all too well. She remembered throwing up in the safehouse when she was fifteen and she’d killed by choice for the first time, Roman rubbing soothing circles on her back to reassure her that it was okay.</p><p>But who did Chrystal have? The stars who didn’t love her back?</p><p> </p><p>It was just her and Neo on the roof, and despite the fact they were relying on each other currently, Neo knew that Chrystal still hated her, so she couldn’t exactly give her a cuddle to make her feel better, despite their strange and still confusing comforting of each other during the day. Neo was forced to simply sit nearby, knowing what the girl was going through and was going through <em> alone. <br/>
</em>Hearing a slight growl, Neo looking over the edge of the roof and saw a small pack of beowulfs sniffing around far down below, and she clenched her eyes shut when she realised that Chrystal’s immense and wild despair was drawing them in, clearly powerful enough that one girl’s emotion was enough for nearby Grimm to detect it.</p><p>Looking around wildly for something she could do to help or stop it, her own emotions rising as she looked around at the rubble, she knew it was only a matter of time until her own emotions contributed and they’d be hunted.</p><p>Her eyes going to the girl next to her, she felt her own whirlwind rising in her gut, the need for a thousand things at once but the most important one being inner silence. So she let her own impulse control crack and decided ‘what the hell’, knowing they both needed comfort and distraction and <em> she had no other options to calm the girl down.  </em></p><p> </p><p>So without asking for permission or waiting she quickly yanked the girl so she could roughly straddle her, violently pulled the girl’s arms away from her face, and roughly kissed her, grabbing her hair painfully firm to keep her head still, her grip strong so she couldn’t escape, so that Neo could give them both that needed silence.<br/>
Keeping it going for a few moments, she pulled back an inch to look into Chrystal’s eyes, slightly releasing her grip on Chrystal’s hair to give her freedom of movement, and she waited.</p><p>The kiss had brought the usual silence to Chrystal’s mind, even as she had fought back out of instinct and reflex at the unexpected and unwanted intrusion and force. It was the same silence that helped, but it had felt <em> poisonous </em>and dark even as it had sunken into her.</p><p>But Neo’s lips had been smooth and soft, without any chafing or roughness despite what she’d been through the past few days.</p><p>And what Chrystal hated the most was that Neo apparently tasted similar to Cypher, and it disgusted her even as she grabbed Neo and pulled her into another kiss, rough and savage and hateful, without any politeness or dignity, and Neo responded just as fiercely and desperately, without any affection or softness as they simply grabbed at each other in a desperate and <em> pathetic need </em>for the silence in the mind that such a thing gave them.</p><p> </p><p>When Chrystal’s darkness and primal need smashed into Neo’s it utterly overran it, and Neo quickly lost any dominance in the kiss, quickly feeling herself submit further and further under the onslaught of someone far more intimate with the hatred they were both feeling and trying to escape. One of Chrystal’s hands went to the nape of her neck and stroked the sensitive skin, her other scratching into Neo’s back roughly through her corset. Both silently shed tears as buckles and laces were then yanked but none successfully undone just yet, the two of them too desperate and mindless to do it properly.</p><p>There was a brief pause once Neo roughly bit Chrystal’s lip and pulled back, the two of them staring at each other in silence as Chrystal’s hand slid up to grasp Neo’s throat, squeezing enough that Neo’s head got fuzzy but not so tight that she couldn’t breathe. Chrystal whispered fiercely and savagely, her eyes wild and broken and truly dark and hateful.</p><p>“You...<em> ruined </em> my whole life. Everything I had stayed alive to work for.”</p><p>
  <em> “...I ruined my own. It’s all gone.” </em>
</p><p>Pausing, Chrystal released Neo’s neck and instead her hand slid to Neo’s cheek, once again her entire demeanour shifting so quickly Neo almost felt scared as Chrystal gently wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with her thumb. Her voice was soft but still somehow filled with cold icy hatred when she spoke next.</p><p>“People like you and I don’t deserve to survive if it means the people as good as those we love and care about have to die. You didn’t want this. You can say it as much as you like, you can cry as many tears as you want. You didn’t want this to happen, and I believe you. But that doesn’t bring them back. They’re dead. You killed them. And now, because of that, because of you,  <em> I’ve </em>killed one of them too.”</p><p> </p><p>A heartbeat later, Neo started to cry properly, her own desperate need for any sort of grounding comfort shouting at her that she deserved whatever punishment she was about to get, that if it was what it took then it was worth admitting and giving into. So she kissed Chrystal again fiercely, not stopping Chrystal from running her hands along her, grabbing and scratching and clawing as her agile hands finally removed Neo’s corset just as Neo’s equally nimble fingers got most of Chrystal’s buckles. As soon as outer layers were gone, Chrystal flipped them over and Neo let her, surrendering and submitting completely to let Chrystal do whatever she wanted to her. It was what she deserved, but it was also what she needed. What they both needed, and they could hate themselves for it tomorrow.</p><p>Hell, they each hated themselves for it currently. Chrystal felt a dark disgust at herself in her gut even as she moaned against Neo’s lips, yanking her vest open roughly and attacked her belt.</p><p> </p><p>But Chrystal’s punishments were a certain kind of torture, as her skilled and clearly experienced fingers danced perfectly as she undid laces and buckles and revealed Neo’s soft skin to the night air. Chrystal’s eyes briefly lingered on the fresh scars that she had caused in their fight, and then on the massive amount of scars from a time Neo had never even really told Roman about, but instead of letting herself care about it Chrystal instead attacked the skin with lips, tongue, and teeth. Her accuracy and dexterity had Neo gasping and grabbing into her back and her hands running through her hair, the silence in her mind being replaced by a dark <em> need. </em></p><p>For Chrystal, a desire born out of the combination of hatred and lust grew in her mind as her fingers finally slid past the waistband of Neo’s pants and, after only a few tortuous minutes of every ounce of skill and practice Chrystal had in her and could apply, she held Neo on the edge. </p><p>Neo squirmed and silently panted underneath her touch, sweat soon beading on her forehead as Chrystal stared down into her eyes with a dark and lustful and vicious expression. But there was no mercy, no release, as Chrystal held her on the edge so delicately and for so long that Neo knew she’d be begging and screaming in desperation if she was capable of making sound. The minutes passed and passed, and it <em> hurt </em> , it hurt so <em> badly </em>as Neo squirmed and tried desperately to grab Chrystal’s wrist and encourage her to have mercy But Chrystal was deceptively strong, her other hand fisted in the back of Neo’s hair as she leaned down and bit deeply up and along Neo’s neck to mark her and hurt her further, Neo crying in desperate tearful need to climax that Chrystal ignored until the girl was mindlessly spasming and collapsing. Time had stopped meaning anything to Neo, all she knew was that her body was begging, was falling apart, and her mind had shattered except for the presence of Chrystal weighing her down and breaking her.</p><p>There was no love or affection or intention of giving pleasure in the action, this was a <em> punishment </em> , a torture more effective and more invasively intimate than anything to do with inflicting pain could ever be. And a horrific element of it was that, in some part of her, Neo never wanted it to stop. It felt <em> amazing </em>to be hurt in this way, to be broken in for what she’d done. All through the build-up Chrystal had stayed entirely silent, simply looking down at her with a cold yet still lustful expression, revelling in the power and fiercely satisfied at using that power to apply punishment. The look in her eyes intoxicated Neo and she didn’t know why, all she knew was that there was something in it, some sort of darkness, that had her shiver and grow even more sensitive the longer she looked into those eyes.</p><p>...She also knew that Chrystal needed this just as much for herself. That it was helping her through heat and grounding raw physicality. And once she was done breaking Neo, Neo had every intention of helping the girl she had caused to be hurt and broken so violently and dismissively.</p><p> </p><p>“Apologise.”</p><p> </p><p>But she couldn’t, her hands weren’t obeying her so she couldn’t sign, <em> nothing </em>in her body was obeying her, she was disconnected from every part of her except for the places Chrystal was touching along her, and her eyes rolled back in her head as Chrystal picked up the pace, but still kept her on the edge so close it was almost impossible, the girl’s enhanced dexterity helping her.</p><p>“I knew your sister. She <em> could </em>rasp out words if she forced it, despite how faint and croaky they were. But it was agony for her to do it, even a syllable. So apologise.”</p><p>It <em> would </em> be agony to do it. Few things hurt as much as forcing her body to do something it otherwise refused to do, forcing her muscles to do things that other muscles were supposed to do instead but couldn’t, and it would take an insane amount of effort to deactivate her aura enough to be able to make sound currently. But she needed to. She <em> needed </em>to. And so she brought it in and focused as much as she could, reaching out to the muscles in agony even as her body spasmed out of her control.</p><p>Chrystal lowered her ear to Neo’s mouth as she knew what was coming, her expression cold and blank, and tears poured from Neo’s eyes in every form of desperation and pain imaginable as she croaked it out in the most pathetic and agonised voice imaginable, barely a whisper as she manipulated the breath with the wrong muscles and it hurt like hell.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I’m sorry.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>With that, and a simple twist of Chrystal’s fingers, Neo was undone. She shattered into pieces Her whole world, her whole existence, went white as every muscle in her body tensed and flexed and spasmed and shut down, her ears ringing and her eyes rolling back as it smashed into her mind and she felt things break and go mindless, shutting down as her body went wild.</p><p>Chrystal sat back and watched as Neo broke apart, her punishment complete as the mute girl ended up in the fetal position shivering wildly as the aftershocks rippled back and forth through her over and over again, her eyes wide and still leaking tears. It hurt so badly. It hurt so <em> good </em> . <em> But it hurt so badly. </em></p><p>
  <em> But it hurt so fucking good. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It took a couple of minutes, during which Chrystal simply fiddled with the frayed bits of her armour, Neo having failed to get it properly unbuckled and removed before Chrystal had taken control.</p><p>Looking up at the stars, her expression softened and she closed her eyes to leak her own tears, only letting out a few and not bothering to open them yet as she continued to cry silently, her body awash with heat and ice that fought back and forth. The hate in her was satisfied for now, but the despair was cold and aching. She had learned a long time ago that there was satisfaction in hatred and anger, but no comfort. Fire and warmth weren’t the same thing when it came to how you felt inside.</p><p>Barely noticing the sound of movement, she did open her eyes when her head was gently tilted up and a soft pair of lips pressed against hers. She opened her eyes as Neo pulled back, the girl still crying and shivering slightly, before Neo hugged her and curled up in her arms, resting her head on Chrystal’s shoulder, and Chrystal instinctively wrapped her arms around the smaller girl and held her as Neo wept for another few minutes now that she was forcibly opened up and vulnerable enough that she could.</p><p>So Chrystal held her, and following instinct pressed a kiss to the top of Neo’s head, simply quietly holding the girl and closing her eyes as the warmth of the affection sank into her body and her mind. Eventually Neo sat up and, hesitating for a moment, kissed her again softly. Consenting, Chrystal wrapped her arms around Neo and let the girl straddle her again, but softly this time, following her guide when Neo gently pushed her down until she was laying flat.</p><p>Leaning back from the kiss, Neo began to agonisingly slowly and shyly unbuckle Chrystal’s armour properly, removing the plates and padding, before resting one hand on the final proper buckles to remove it and resting her other hand on Chrystal’s cheek, tracing her lips with her thumb and giving her an almost desperate look, licking her lips slowly before bringing her hands up.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Let me?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Thinking over it for a moment, feeling the ice and fire inside of herself fighting and hurting, eating away at her bones and head, Chrystal nodded despite knowing how dangerous it was, despite knowing how infectious this toxicity could be. She’d been down this road before, what felt like so long ago but was only a couple of years ago. Other girls and guys, another view of the starry sky, another burning desire to give up. But this time there was no cliff edge close enough to be tempting, and didn’t that give it a chance of going better?</p><p>One night. God, one night, to make it through to tomorrow.</p><p>She could hate herself tomorrow. Right now she just needed to not feel anything at all.</p><p>Her psychiatrist once told her that turning the pleasures of life into psychological narcotics wouldn’t result in happiness, only numbness.</p><p>It needed to be true tonight.</p><p> </p><p>So she grabbed the back of Neo’s head gently and pulled her into a deep kiss, both of them filling it with <em> hollow </em> and <em> fake </em>affection to disguise the desperate need for solace.</p><p> </p><p>And Chrystal gave into catharsis once again.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Yeah not exactly hot to read, hey?<br/>Punishment/self-hatred sex is as uncomfortable as it is freeing, and I wanted it to read that way. I hope I managed it!</p><p>Chrystal falls another step lower.</p><p>ALSO, after the end of the Volume 8 hiatus, episode 8 came out and decided to make one of my jobs SO much easier by canonising something I'd been planning myself from the start already. Though now I'm not going to be able to convince people it was part of my plot for Delilah from the start.<br/>Darnit. Ah well.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Raindrops</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As the days continue and there's nothing to do but think, Kylar begins to understand what it's going to take to survive in a world where power is in the soul and not in skill, and his Semblance answers the call, meanwhile Chrystal and Neo finally reach the edge of the city, and with the outpost in sight they both know there's no more putting off settling things once and for all.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three days later, on the sixth day since the fall of Beacon, the storms returned. It was as if the skies were responding to the pain and loss in the air just like the Grimm were, because instead of the cracking lightning and thunder of the rage and despair while the fires were still burning, this time it was simply pouring rain. The more subtle yet relentless grief and weight that had set in alongside the exhaustion, as those who survived it woke up again piece by piece.<br/>With the loud rumbling of the rain overpowering any hope of conversation as they sat outside underneath the covering in the large courtyard of the Goroesi estate, the three members of Team SKTC that were together instead lost themselves in their own thoughts. The workshop lights were still on from where they had spent the morning in the slow process of repairing their weapons, and in Kylar’s case it was the process of rebuilding his own from scratch, a job that was going to take more than a week of focus and effort despite still having the blueprints and having done it before.</p><p>But the work was still exhausting, and none of their hearts were in it, so they found themselves sitting at a small table under the cover of the patio, Shina resting with his head on the table while Kylar looked out at the rain with Tacita seated on the timber flooring nearby with her legs crossed and her eyes closed, meditating and focusing with her semblance. Despite her efforts, she’d been unable to replicate her astral projection, but she was refusing to let it frustrate her, showing more patience than either of the other two were capable of.</p><p>As per usual.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Shina was growing increasingly agitated the longer that Chrystal was missing, and had gone back to working out and training the moment his body was back in a strong enough state to. Her absence was eating away at him, fear and guilt mixing together into a painful cocktail that he could only distract himself from through the exhaustion of training.</p><p>Sighing, Kylar looked away from the rain and back down at the book he’d been reading, yet another in the large pile that he’d been working his way through as the hours and nights had passed, normally spending the time in the quiet atmosphere of the library while Tacita meditated nearby and Shina trained in the yard on his own, preferring the privacy. The books were growing increasingly complex and nuanced, and while it didn’t exactly give him a headache it still often had him looking up and away in thought as he tried to process the concepts he was absorbing.<br/>Philosophy and spirituality had never gelled with him. Science, experimentation and results, that’s what had always made sense, with softer fields of study feeling unimportant and ultimately useless. During his training, he’d felt that his Semblance was a representation of that being true, being based on a form of chemistry and practically a new field of science that only he could do.</p><p>Back in the hospital ward after the Breach, his dad had suggested that the opposite was true, in his own way where Kylar had to figure out what he was saying by thinking over it. If Royal Alchemy was spiritual or philosophical in nature, instead of purely science based, Kylar felt the need to understand exactly what it was his father was seeing in it.</p><p>So he read, and studied. The different theories on the origins and base of Dust, of Semblances, of the importance and connections of aura. The relation dust had to the elements and how it interacted with Semblances and auras at the same time.</p><p>If dust was pure chemistry, then how did it interact so easily with unrelated semblances such as Blake’s? And what about Weiss, who formed her glyphs out of pure force of intent and will, and not any sort of science like his own?</p><p>Even she had suggested that their Semblances had a relation.</p><p> </p><p>Closing his eyes and pinching his nose at the same time, Kylar let out a sigh as he listened to the sounds of the rain. When he opened his eyes again, he winced as the strange vision had returned over his eyes and so much of what was around him was glowing in varied degrees of brightness and intensity. He had his own theories about what he was seeing, but there weren’t any ways to confirm them.<br/>Looking out at where every individual raindrop was shimmering in his vision, he bit the inside of his cheek as he thought over what he’d been reading and what his father had said. Water was the element of dedication and introspection, according to elemental spirituality, and was what connected the most to people who shared those traits. Those who considered their surroundings and their relation with it with a patient scrutiny, satiated their curiosity and then moving on to the next source of interest.</p><p>In a way, water was next to lightning on a chart, where lightning was relentless and impulsive and motivated. They complimented each other, or at the very least were <em> meant </em>to, and yet water dust had never come to him as easily as lightning had.</p><p>He had never been particularly introspective, or contemplative of his surroundings and how they affected him. Not in any slow and considering way.</p><p> </p><p>Standing, he made his way over to the edge of the covering and extended his hand out into the rain, catching raindrops on his hand and collecting a small pool of shimmering water in his palm. Things were changing inside of him as he healed and researched and felt the battle affecting him. Rebuilding Myriadisca was requiring patience, commonly associated with earth dust which never felt comfortable in his aura, when his initial building of it had been motivated by the discovery and excitement of lightning and air, which were his two strongest.</p><p>And if he wanted to improve, he needed to be introspective, he needed to grow, to understand what he’d done and process it and be able to move on with it. He knew that. He’d killed people, and seen friends killed, and it was requiring <em> so </em>much work to handle and allow himself to feel the pain about. The nightmares had begun and Tacita was having them too, resulting in lack of sleep as they both repeatedly woke up and held each other.</p><p>Kylar didn’t like the thought of Shina waking up alone and suffering, but he insisted on having his own room, and both Kylar and Tacita knew that the boy was suffering nightmares as well. They heard him sometimes.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing again as water continued to puddle in his hand, he looked at the shimmering liquid as he thought over it. All the ways that they needed to grow just to recover and heal and be ready for what had to happen next.</p><p>His aura shimmered over his skin, concentrating in his hand, and the water rippled.</p><p>Blinking in startled confusion, Kylar felt a gap in his aura as his semblance had expended some energy, but with no dust in his system there shouldn’t have been anything to use alongside it. But there had definitely been a drain, he could feel it. Bringing his hand closer to himself and looking down at the water, he noticed it shimmering a little brighter, and he frowned in fascination and curiosity, tilting his head and making a quiet humming sound of curiosity in his throat. Swirling the water in his hand and studying it, he slowly extended his hand to capture more rain and fill the palm of his hand entirely, and then brought it back to himself again. Deliberately concentrating his aura in his hand the same way he would if he was casting with his Semblance and preparing something, he closed his eyes and focused on how the water felt in his touch.</p><p>Water was the element of introspection and focused curiosity, and so he focused on it, embracing the reality that if he wanted to get better he needed to understand what he was able to do, and what he <em> had </em>to do, as much as he could. Feeling the water shimmer in his hand, his aura began to drain into it, and instead of fighting it on reflex like he had before he instead allowed it to happen as he focused on the traits that water represented and, according to those sorts of theories, embodied.</p><p>The drain on his aura was substantial, but slowly the feeling of the water in his hand began to change, and he almost lost focus when he felt that it was almost starting to solidify, echoes coming through his sense of touch that were incredibly familiar to him as he also felt small bits of the water evaporating and vanishing. But the drain on his aura was larger than he had anticipated by the time whatever was happening had finished and it settled, his aura stabilising itself and slowly starting to recharge.</p><p>Bringing himself out of his almost meditative trance, he opened his eyes and looked down into his hand, before his breath caught in his throat in shock and his eyes widened.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting in the palm of his hand was a small, cracked but intact, crystal of Water Dust.</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at it, taking it between his forefinger and thumb and bringing it up to his eyes to study it properly, he bit his lips in amazed curiosity as he looked at it. It wasn’t perfect, there were cracks and his aura could feel inconsistencies and impurities, but it was still dust all the same, and his Semblance reacted to it.<br/>Smiling widely, he tossed it up slightly before grabbing it in his hand properly and drawing it into his aura, feeling the water energy enter his Semblance. It was only a small amount, the crystal hadn’t been large and it hadn’t been pure, but it was still there all the same, and he grinned before looking over to Tacita and focusing the water dust in the tip of his middle finger, then pointing his hand towards her and flicking, the small concentrated ball of water flying towards her at a high speed which she still managed to duck away from, having easily seen it coming.</p><p>Opening her eyes slowly, having seen it all but been too deep in her meditative trance to physically respond, she smiled in immense pride and satisfaction at him with a nod, meanwhile Shina had looked over to see what had happened, figuring something important must have occurred, and straightened up to face them.</p><p> </p><p>“What was that?”</p><p> </p><p>Smiling widely, Kylar walked over to sit across from him at the table and place his hand palm up on the tabletop, Tacita walking over to properly watch. Closing his eyes, he focused on the traits and worldview associated with air. Eagerness, freedom, confidence, all which were coming naturally to him after what he had just discovered and achieved. With air all around them, he felt a small swirl of wind just above the palm of his hand as it concentrated and was brought together, his aura struggling to bind the wild element together due to it not being as concentrated in one place as water was.</p><p>Just like with the rain, the drain on his aura was constant and easily noticeable, but with his now larger reserves he had enough to do it safely, and he felt the air start to solidify on the palm of his hand even as his hair ruffled from the wind around them picking up, being drawn in. Allowing himself to be filled with the confidence granted by finally starting to understand his Semblance, finally...getting it, he smiled widely, and tiredly, when he felt the crystal finally come together in his grip.</p><p>Opening his eyes, he looked down at the decently sized air crystal, the air emotions and that state of being still coming to him far easier than the traits associated with water, and that <em> clearly </em>having relation to the amount of aura needed to force the purification. The crystal was larger, and looked more intact and pure.</p><p>Flicking it between his fingers, he lifted it up, and all three of them stared at it, with Shina’s eyes wide in amazement and shock.</p><p>“You…it…”</p><p>Nodding in understanding, Kylar grinned and gave a bewildered laugh, looking at the two of them. “I think I understand now.”</p><p>“Your semblance?” Shina leant forward to study the crystal properly, and then flicked his eyes to Kylar with focused interest.</p><p> </p><p>Smiling in excitement and fierce determination, Kylar nodded before standing and beginning to pace around, spinning the crystal between his fingers as was his habit, his breaths coming fast and eager. <em> This </em>was what their new world was. It wasn’t about strength, it wasn’t about who was tougher and who was deadlier. Weapons, combat ratings, how many grimm you killed, that wasn’t what the world really was. At its heart, maybe, just maybe, the world...it was about who they were.</p><p>And not what they could do.</p><p>The core of all things. Dust made up everything in the world, it was the soul of it. </p><p>But <em> people </em>...</p><p>His Semblance...his whole life, he had approached it like it was simply a matter of taking ingredients and mixing them together, never putting much thought into why some dusts were easy and some weren’t. Not until the Breach, when his father had helped him start to think. Thinking about it, Kylar considered the possibility that <em> that </em> conversation was an early step in his parents eventually telling him about the Maidens, about Salem, and most importantly, about the <em> relics. </em></p><p>
  <em> “Ozpin told us that the four key parts of human nature and existence were physically in the world as concentrated items. Creation, Destruction, Knowledge, and Choice.” </em>
</p><p>Looking down at the crystal in his hands, formed by him embracing his aura, embracing his <em> soul, </em>and focusing on a part of himself and a part of how he was able to think and feel. A concentrated ingot formed out of part of how he could choose to see what was happening around him, just like how dust was believed to be the pure form of the key elements that made up everything that wasn’t alive.</p><p>A Semblance was formed out of who a person was. Their personality, their worldview, what drives them. Looking to everyone he knew, it became more and more obvious; Tacita’s semblance was her commitment to transparency and understanding, and her unwavering attentiveness to everything around her, always caring and noticing but always feeling as if she wasn’t a part of it. Chrystal’s was her trauma, driven to escape and cover-up pain, ignoring it and avoiding it, never truly <em> running </em>but never letting herself properly feel and process it. Shina’s was his need to improve, his need to push himself further even at the cost of his health, to always be good enough to do what he had to do.</p><p> </p><p>Kylar had thought up until only a few minutes ago, holding his hand out in the rain, that his own was formed from his ability to analyse, his intelligence, his scientific mind. Tossing the air crystal between his fingers, he was wrong.</p><p>“I understand…” He breathed out, pacing around. Semblances were said to evolve, they changed and grew as the person who had them did. </p><p> </p><p>His father’s had. Turning from a Semblance that simply pulled danger caused by dust towards himself instead of letting it go to his teammates, into a Semblance that let him absorb the damage meant for others close to him entirely. To protect. To guard.</p><p>And his mother’s; beginning as a passive effect on those around her to compel them to act with honesty to themselves and their intentions without deceit or hesitation, and evolving to allow her to deliberately compel honesty from people when she needed it. Her constant instinct and desire to be honest and true to herself, and wanting others to do the same.</p><p>But Kylar...who was he before everything changed? His hubris, his...arrogance and pride. Absorbing dust to use it. <em> Taking </em>from the world because he believed he was entitled to using it himself. Being like that, having only that, had almost gotten him killed too many times. Being the sort of person who only lightning and air dust truly agreed with, wasn’t going to be enough.</p><p>Who was he going to become now? Who was he <em> willing </em>to become?</p><p>Clenching his fist around the crystal in his hand, he drew the air dust into himself and let it fill him, feeling light and...free. Because he understood.</p><p>Who was he willing to become now?</p><p> </p><p>Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, even this Adam that Shina fought.</p><p>It wasn’t about what they could <em> do </em>...</p><p> </p><p>Nodding once again as he closed his eyes and felt it inside of himself, he spoke softer, but even more confident. “I think I understand.”</p><p>Opening his eyes, he looked over to where Tacita was watching him with a proud glimmer in her eyes, before they both looked to Shina, who had his arms crossed and an unreadable expression on his face, but his eyes showed he was deep in thought as he had thought over what had just happened.<br/>In Shina's mind, his failings as a team leader were piling up. He was just a fighter, a swordsman with skill and a Semblance that requires sacrifice and a deathwish. Since waking up from his injuries, he felt the same fear from a year ago threaten to enter his mind; that he wasn’t meant to be a leader. That it was a mistake.</p><p>That he was a failure.</p><p>Under his watch, Team SKTC had shattered. His friends were nearly killed, the girl who was practically his <em> sister </em>left alone and stranded in hell.</p><p>Standing abruptly, he put his hands flat on the table and closed his eyes as a tear leaked out, the first he had shed since waking up and all he had allowed himself to feel was anger, guilt, and shame. Squeezing his eyes shut tighter, his fingers dug into the wood of the table, a failure as a friend, as a brother, as a Huntsman, and...as their leader.</p><p>Tacita’s and Kylar’s scars were deep and horrific, and would be constant reminders to them and to him that he had failed them.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” He whispered out, stifling a low growl. “I’m so sorry. I thought I’d gotten good enough. That I’d learned. That maybe I was ready.”</p><p>A moment later, a soft hand yet with deeply calloused fingers was gently resting on his right hand, squeezing it reassuringly, and a few moments after that another hand, only slightly calloused, was touching his left, but there was a mixture of discomfort but also determination in the contact.</p><p>Opening his eyes, he faltered when both Tacita and Kylar were looking at him with soft but loyal expressions, and both forgiveness and apologies of their own in their sad smiles. While Kylar was simply silent, forever unsure how to navigate this sort of territory, Tacita stood and took Shina’s hand properly and squeezed it again, her bow-drawing hand gripping his main sword hand. She looked into his eyes and her face was gentle, but with a fierceness in it.</p><p>“We all failed each other. And none of us will ever heal every injury we sustained that night because of it. All four of us let each other down. It’s true.” She nodded with a sigh. “But we won’t do it again. No more thinking we can do everything on our own. And that means you too.”</p><p>Frowning on confusion, Shina opened his mouth and closed it again, not understanding, and she squeezed his hand tighter to hold his attention, her eyes going sharper. “You <em> are </em>our leader. But what happens to the other three of us is not just your burden. We failed you too. And next time we face them, we’ll do it together. No more sacrificing ourselves. Next time, you won’t have to go to the fifth cut. Because we’ll be there next to you.”</p><p>The look of fierce determination in her eyes, and the shine in Kylar’s eyes that implied he was understanding more than he currently knew how to word, Shina sucked in a deep breath and nodded, his own eyes sharpening. He gripped both of their hands in his own, and he smiled when the pair of them took each other's hand in their other.</p><p>“...okay. Then we have to get back to it. No more brooding.”</p><p>Nodding at each other, a new wave of confidence in them, all three of them dropped hands and looked out into the rain. But instead of the noise being oppressive and depressing, Kylar simply took in the shimmer of the raindrops, and smiled when he decided that the sky was instead trying to tell them something.</p><p>He just had to keep learning how to listen.</p><p> </p><p>Listening in from just behind the back door, a small smile on her face as the three teenagers found their inner momentum again, and began to understand, Tesse deactivated her Semblance and made her way back into the house properly.</p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The small town of Ikaksi was adorable. Small and quaint, only a couple hundred people lived in it, and it was far enough south on the Mistral border that the almost tropical climate had resulted in gorgeous groves of thick trees, forcing the village to build their houses and businesses relatively clustered together. Despite the density of the houses and people, Delilah had found it easy to locate an abandoned house on the outskirts and make it her temporary home, happily hanging up clothes she had bought from the city in the wardrobe and making up the bed with fine linens that she’d grabbed as well.</p><p>Thankful for the second bedroom, studying the furniture inside of it, she found it...adequate for her first laboratory, but she’d be forced to do her surgical work on the dining room table for now, as archaic and almost <em> insulting </em>to her children it was.</p><p>But once she had a decent amount of children again she’d require more room, better equipment, and parts, so she could return to creating her better children again. Which all should be easier to get once she was more free to move around and collect them.</p><p> </p><p>Ikaksi was close enough to a few other villages that some were only a few hours walk away, which would come in handy.</p><p>But for now she needed to get started on the basics. It was like restarting Beacon all over again, except this time it was going to be so much slower...</p><p> </p><p>It had been incredibly easy to get her first body, with most people automatically going to be assuming that people going missing were simply lost to the nearby grimm. The man had been working in the fields of one of the small plots of fields near the proper treeline, and her mortal disguise was good enough that striking up a conversation with him had been easy. Young, charming, strong and well-built, he had no immediate family and spent almost all his time working, not taking much time to socialise. Perfect. A few select words and a raising of her eyebrows, a smile filled with wonderful promises, and he’d eagerly followed her swaying hips to the house she was staying at. The moment her hand was on his chest once the door was closed, he dropped, his heart stopping painlessly.</p><p>She wasn’t a <em> savage </em>, after all.</p><p>As she worked, she relished in no longer having responsibilities during the day as she hummed in happiness, the body of the young man opened up on the dining room table. He wasn’t a perfect specimen, but he was well built enough that her normal enhancements to his muscles would be potent, and that would do for her first child in the village.</p><p>Using the tip of her finger to opened up an artery on his neck, the dust crystals already inserted into his muscles to kickstart his body once she needed to awaken it, she ran her tongue along her new slightly sharpened incisors, practically fangs, as she prepared herself for what she had to do for the next stage, no longer needed a grimm for the blood transfusion. Why would she need a Grimm for a source of black blood, when she now had it inside herself?</p><p>It made her job so much easier, but it also made it so much more...intimate.</p><p> </p><p>Bringing her aura into her hands, pooling her Semblance, she lifted one of his cold and greying arms to her mouth while placing her other hand on his heart, and with a sigh of preparation for the new experiment she bit down on his wrist hard, freshly sharpened incisors piercing into the flesh and giving her easy access to his veins. Using her Semblance on his heart to pump his blood, she compelled her own body to begin to regurgitate her own black blood through her mouth, making the body practically suck it out of her mouth and into its own veins.<br/>Red blood poured from the slash in his neck as the black blood pushed it out and replaced it, sinking into the muscles and cells with a speed and concentration that had been impossible before. But now the black blood and black flesh obeyed her Semblance with the same ease and obedience that mortal flesh obeyed, and she felt the flesh between her teeth started to harden and go pale as it was perfected, the blood pouring from the neck gradually darkening and turning black as the last drops of red were replaced.</p><p>Sealing the wounds as she removed her teeth and licked the excess blood from around her mouth with her tongue, she closed the slash on the neck as well before looking down at her work. There was a degree of disappointment in her heart as she was forced to give birth to one of her more lackluster children, but she needed him, and she knew he’d still be wonderful compared to the others of his type that she’d birthed in the past, in a league of his own.</p><p>Straightening, she smiled down at him softly as she ran her fingers through his now black hair, the dark green eyes of the body staring up at the ceiling lifelessly for the moment, but she knew it was time for the next part of the process, the final part, and she placed her hand on his heart and the other on his forehead, closing her eyes and, with a simple sigh, awakening the flesh underneath her touch, not even needing any dust at all anymore, instead stimulating both the black flesh and the mortal flesh at the same time.</p><p> </p><p>The gift Salem had given her was more powerful and useful than her queen might have expected, and Delilah had every intention of perfecting her use of it, so with a gentle coaxing she awakened her child, the first of her new batch, and her smile grew when it simply blinked and came to life without the jolt and panic that would have occurred before from the shock of lightning dust.</p><p>Letting out a sigh of relief, a degree of comfort going through her as a small insecurity in her mind vanished, the small fear that maybe she’d been tricked and she wouldn’t be able to do it anymore, and she knew that her work was going to get so much easier.</p><p> </p><p>“Easy honey, wakey wakey.” She coaxed, running her fingers through his hair again and nodding when he looked at her with recognition, and sheer adoration entered his eyes as the aura she had put in him responded to hers and called out to him. She was his mother, and his new heart and hollow soul reached out to her as if she truly was.</p><p>Helping him sit up, she placed a hand on his cheek and stroked it softly. “I need your help, baby. We’ve got so much we need to do. But first, let’s give you a check-over to see how you did.”</p><p>Numbly and blankly, he stood up entirely and went still so she could run her hands over him and study her work, satisfied that his skin was appropriately hardened and his muscles had grown perfectly. He was beautiful, despite being based on one of the more simple earlier batches he was a far cry above her original children. The black flesh, pure and concentrated right from her own body, gave him strength and beauty that she couldn’t have imagined giving one of her children before.</p><p>“Oh honey...you’re just as good as I hoped. We did it.”</p><p>With dead eyes, the child still smiled numbly in response to the praise, and she patted his cheek and gestured to one of the chairs.</p><p>“Take a seat and stay there. Once you have around four more siblings we can get started. We’re going to need the entire town if I’m to be able to work properly. So we’ll get you some siblings, but then I need parts. It won’t be easy at first, but...I think I can make you all dextrous enough now you can help me with that. Hang on.”</p><p>She smiled in optimism and looked down at her own hands, before grabbing a random cup from the kitchen and coming out to toss it to him gently, clapping in excitement when he easily caught it and tossed it between his own hands.</p><p>“With no rigor mortis at all, and true black blood instead of a simple transfusion from a mindless beast...oh Salem has <em> no </em>idea what she’s given me. Alright honey, you just wait there. Mummy’s going to make some siblings for you and then we’ll get to work...I think if I work carefully and we can find someone strong enough, that I can try something a bit...well, you’re going to have some amazing siblings. I’ve got so many ideas, baby.”</p><p>Nodding as she thought over her plans, she went back into her bedroom and, knowing she clearly had a simple and viable strategy, changed into some of her...nicer, clothes. Nothing wrong with being a black widow. Rolling her shoulders, she headed out to go and get the rest of the bodies, finding it easy despite the midday sun.</p><p> </p><p>The first full day of her work passed easily as storm clouds approached and began to cover the sky, and by the time her fifth child was awakening, rain had begun to gently fall from the sky, all five of her new children turning towards the window in unison in reaction to the new sound.</p><p>Standing at the window herself and looking out at the rain slowly grew from a simple sprinkle to a proper downpour, she tapped her fingers on the windowsill and nodded as her plans began to solidify in her mind. With five people going missing, she had a select amount of time to accelerate her work before things became <em> too </em>noticed and word spread. Word couldn’t get out of the town of what was happening here, because while Haven was impossibly too far away for them to ask for any Huntsmen help directly, there were still Huntsmen on the hunt in southern territories.</p><p>And while the whole point of her having chosen to work in the south was <em> for </em>the Huntsmen, she wouldn’t be able to kill or capture any until she had two or three of her stronger children. But that required bodies that were strong enough, and parts that were suitable. She’d made do in Beacon, settling for subpart specimens because she’d had to be impossibly discrete. Now that she was free to work properly, she didn’t want to settle anymore.</p><p>Especially for the plans she had for stronger children, <em> better </em>children. Perfection was a long way off, it would require work and experimentation and effort. She had around six months until they were taking Haven, and while she didn’t expect to have any perfect children by then she was going to do her best.</p><p>They deserved her best.</p><p>Trial and error.</p><p> </p><p>Looking over her shoulder as she heard the approaching creaking of the Seer, the Grimm that had been dispatched to keep an eye on her and allow Salem to communicate with her, she straightened up and smiled politely and expectantly.</p><p>
  <em> “Delilah...according to Watts, you requested to be placed in the southern regions. Right where Lionheart has been sending his Huntsmen for us to deal with them.” </em>
</p><p>“Yes ma’am. I want to continue Doctor Rosha’s work, and to do that I need access to the brain tissue of Huntsmen.”</p><p>
  <em> “I see...from the looks of it, you’ve already gotten started in your work. Back to basics, apparently, but I suppose you’re making do. Are you planning on taking over the entire village as some sort of base of operations?” </em>
</p><p>“...yes, ma’am. I need the room, a place to keep fresh specimens, and enough room that my children aren’t just aimlessly wandering in the forest where they might get seen. With your permission of course, my queen.”</p><p> </p><p>The Seer was silent for a time as Salem clearly thought over her plan, and Delilah swallowed a lump in her throat in nervousness at how long it was taking to get a response. When Salem spoke again, her voice was almost amused and playful.</p><p>
  <em> “Very well. I suppose having a small outpost in the south could be useful in the months to come. Move ahead with your plan. If you get caught, it is your failure to recover from.” </em>
</p><p>“I understand, my queen. I won’t fail you.” Delilah knelt respectfully, before freezing when one of the bladed tendrils of the Seer tickled her throat, lightly tracing the blade along her skin.</p><p>
  <em> “I hope not, for your sake. You are not necessary or vital to me yet and, much like you, I have no interest in tolerating the failures I create.” </em>
</p><p>Nodding shakily and politely as the tendril gently wrapped around her throat and pulled her up so she was standing again, Salem stared into her eyes through the Seer for another few moments before releasing her, the Seer floating away to the corner of the room and going dormant again. Rubbing her hand along the skin of her neck, she swallowed and looked out the window again in thought, the rain now a true torrential downpour.</p><p>Turning to her children, she glanced around at them as they stared at her patiently and obediently, waiting for her to express her wishes and desires for them to fulfil, to make her happy and pleased with them.</p><p>She thinned her lips, before looking around at all of them firmly.</p><p> </p><p>“Go into the forest, subdue sabyrs and beowulfs and rip out their largest fangs and claws, collect ten each before returning, and grab me some snakes if you encounter any. Mummy is going to go get some more bodies. We can’t afford to wait. It appears the first of your stronger siblings will be born in a childhood home unworthy of them.”</p><p> </p><p>The five children immediately stood and left the building, instinctively making sure to put effort into not being seen as her desire for discretion bled to them through their aura, and as she felt them vanish into the trees to perform their chores she sighed and bit her bottom lip.</p><p>She was a patient perfectionist by nature, who hated settling for bad results. It had made her an excellent student, and meant her work had accelerated greatly at Beacon. But at Beacon she’d had resources and equipment she simply didn’t have access to here, and it felt like she was starting from <em> below </em>scratch.</p><p>Sinking down into one of the now vacant chairs, she put her head in her hands as she thought over her situation.</p><p>With six months until they were to destroy a city, she had to decide between quantity or quality, and she was a person who <em> always </em>preferred quality. Now having barely any need to eat or sleep helped, she only needed about four hours of sleep a night to be fully rested, and by her estimations she only needed to eat once every three days. Quality was a possible choice.</p><p>But if she didn’t improve her children fast enough…</p><p>How much patience was Salem going to have with her?</p><p>How much time?</p><p> </p><p>Well, she was nothing if not ambitious, since her first major step towards perfection was taking over a village all on her own, and the thought made her smirk in amusement at herself as she went to head out into the town to keep working.</p><p>She paused in the doorway, just out of the door enough that rain began to pour onto her, soaking her hair and causing her clothes to stick to her as drops trickled down her flawless pale skin.</p><p>This was the life she’d chosen, what she’d given everything up for.</p><p>This would be the second safe haven she’d have destroyed.</p><p>And it wouldn’t be the last.</p><p>Because evolution is always ugly, and it’s always painful, and things are always lost in the process, no matter how beautiful people might <em> beg </em>growth to be each time.</p><p> </p><p>Her path would be monstrous in the eyes of ordinary people, she’d known that from the moment she had entered into her arrangement with Doctor Rosha at the very start of her ambitions.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes as the rain dripped down her skin, she briefly allowed her monstrous true appearance to flicker out, the sickly tendrils appearing under her skin, and her black hair going so dark it became a void, fangs briefly enlarging in her mouth slightly.</p><p>It all began with the subjugation of Ikaksi.</p><p> </p><p>A wide and vicious smile grew on her face, showing teeth, and her toxic green eyes opened, with every bit of white now tainted black.</p><p>With her power, she and she alone could one day create something perfect. Both mortal flesh and Grimm flesh obeyed her, a dual power which not even Salem had, and with it she would forcibly do what the natural course would forever fail to achieve.</p><p>What’s a few villages when weighed against the prize of that ambition? What’s a city, if it meant achieving perfection, what the gods themselves had failed to achieve?</p><p> </p><p>Running her tongue along the tips of her teeth, she felt as two of her children subdued and ripped fangs and claws from their first grimm, and she smiled wider. By midnight, she’d have her first stronger child born.</p><p>In a week, that child would be nothing more than as a stepping stone compared to what she intended on creating.</p><p>Closing the door of her temporary home behind her, she tilted her head up to the sky and closed her eyes, letting the rain wash over her as she returned to her more human appearance, altering her features slightly to be prettier and more tempting, she had prey to draw in after all, and she ran her hand through her soaking hair to flatten it down as she began her walk, an innocent smile on her face.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t matter how pretty they’d think she looked. Evolution is always ugly.</p><p>Even if just on the inside.</p><p>But it was worth it.</p><p>Perfection was worth the cost of anything.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The veil and noise provided by the pouring rain made Neo and Chrystal practically invisible as they stood on the intact roof of what had once been a massive old warehouse, easily five stories tall, helping them look across at the rescue outpost ahead of them, less than an hour’s run away. They were so close, and it had both of them nervously clenching their hands as they looked down at it.</p><p>The air between the two of them was...strange. Ever since that first time they’d grabbed each other for solace three nights ago, it had ended up happening every night, more than once, and every time it had become more normal and more toxic at the strange time.</p><p>But during their days of travelling, they’d been more in synchronisation, more attuned, the need to speak and sign so much fading as they simply began to understand each other’s thoughts and moods, due to the fact that every time they grabbed at each other and ripped their own emotional insides raw they understood each other that little bit better.<br/>In a way, it made them both sick. But it had also been a bandage over a wound that they had no other ideas how to begin to heal.</p><p>So, an hour away from rescue, they stood together silently on the rooftop and looked across at the lit up camp where there was enough movement to be visible even from such a distance through heavy rain.</p><p>“We’re there.” Chrystal breathed, nervous tension in her shoulders, and Neo nodded in agreement as she looked over to give a small smile, and Chrystal smiled back.</p><p>
  <em> “How far away, do you think? An hour?” </em>
</p><p>“Just under, for me at least. You? Maybe a bit longer."</p><p>Narrowing her eyes at the playful insult Neo jabbed Chrystal in the shoulder, and the other girl grinned unapologetically in response before the smile faded, a rapid series of thoughts occurring to her as she looked into the eyes of the shorter girl.</p><p> </p><p>If they were this close, it meant that it was time.</p><p>Chrystal looked around at the massive flat rooftop they were standing on, almost entirely intact without any signs of debris or fire damage. This far in the outer city, there hadn’t really been any fighting, and it was why the rescue efforts had pulled back this far.</p><p>Most of the buildings in the past hour of travelling had been intact, it had made things far faster and easier for the both of them, though Neo had fallen behind even further as Chrystal had been able to speed up faster on the easy terrain.</p><p> </p><p>Noticing Chrystal looking around, Neo followed her gaze and examined the rooftop as well, scuffing her boot on the slightly slippery concrete from the small puddles that were gathering. Scrunching her mouth up in thought, she glanced over at Chrystal, who now had a blank expression on her face, every emotion and thought was completely hidden and shielded.</p><p>Knowing what was coming, the two of them having made it clear it was going to end up happening, Neo closed her eyes silently in a strangely pained resignation, a small lump of anxiety in her gut, as she put her hand on her parasol and drew it, letting it hang by her side and allowing herself to shatter into glass as Chrystal spun on her heel and unsheathed a blade in the one movement as she brought it down where she’d been, unsurprised when Neo shattered and vanished, and was suddenly on the other side of the rooftop.</p><p>Wordlessly, Chrystal paced until she was directly opposite Neo, and drew her other blade to hang in her hand, each one hanging by her side calmly. No guns this time. No noise or chaos.</p><p>Just blades, hatred, revenge, and the rain.</p><p> </p><p>Neo clicked out the blade tip from her parasol and allowed the black ice that both herself and Chrystal knew well to slide over her own mind and heart. They’d gotten each other this far, they’d poisoned each other in the cause of hollow comfort just to sleep at night, but if Neo didn’t deal with Chrystal now then the girl would forever be an infection in her blood that she’d crave in her worst moments. The girl’s unpredictable and dangerous nature was too hypnotic and alluring, and the past days had awakened something in her that Neo had seen grow and come to life, and Neo hadn’t been able to resist the way it called her into Chrystal’s arms and teeth and nails.</p><p>It had to go. Chrystal was too poisonous, too cruel, and too addictive.</p><p>Meanwhile Chrystal’s thoughts of Neo were a whirlwind, and nowhere near as clear and simple as they had been the first time they’d done this. Toxic catharsis wasn’t anything new to her, but she was more than aware that she had been changing, and new dark parts of her had been appearing. And Neo had provided a dark catharsis to them, and it felt different. Her previous partners who she had used as narcotic comforts hadn’t been particularly damaged themselves, but Neo was a fucking tragedy just like her, and it was as intoxicating as much as it was revolting to enjoy it.<br/>Every morning Chrystal woke up wanting to put a bullet into both of their heads, and then that night she’d inevitably have Neo against a wall again before the sun was entirely set, the other girl always reciprocating willingly, and often initiating by herself. Sometimes even during the day, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off of each other and deny themselves the silence that they used each other for. Hits from a drug, that’s all it was. A drug that would kill the both of them in the end.</p><p>And despite everything Neo had done, everything Chrystal still hated her for, Neo had gone through the last few days alongside her and in a toxic and infectious way kept her intact during it.</p><p>But it didn’t matter how much Neo apologised when Chrystal punished her and tortured her and hurt her at night, it didn’t change what was around them.</p><p>Vale was destroyed. Petyr, Cypher, and Reika, were dead.</p><p> </p><p>And once she was at the outpost, she’d get to find out who else had died partially because of the girl she’d been using, and who’d been using her, the past few nights and days.</p><p> </p><p>Both of their thoughts were broken by a crack of thunder and flash of lightning, and they both moved, closing the distance in less than a moment, Chrystal’s blades impacting with Neo’s parasol as they both pushed against each other for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes with desperation hiding behind both of their expressions, and then the clash immediately ended and they went into their proper styles.</p><p>They’d been watching each other fight the past few days, fighting alongside each other, so they were far more familiar with how the other one fought, and it made the fight even faster and smoother than their first one as moves were deflected and dodged when they were expected. But as smart as Neo was, Chrystal was still faster, and her instincts were sharper. It was only a minute until Neo was forced to shatter for the first time and slip towards Chrystal from a different direction, only for Chrystal to dodge it easily, Neo sliding underneath her counterattack and attempting to hook the handle of her parasol on the girl’s leg and tug her, unsurprised when she missed.</p><p>Sweeping a hand along the roof as she spun, Neo splashed water up into Chrystal’s eyes and went for a thrust, but Chrystal kicked her parasol off-course without needing to visually see it coming, and Neo couldn’t help but be impressed yet again even as she took an elbow to the chest as Chrystal jolted forward to meet Neo’s momentum with her own.</p><p>Grabbing her arm before it pulled back entirely from her impact on her chest, Neo tugged it down and hooked her leg up and around to kick into her wrist to try and cause Chrystal to drop her blade, before hopping to that foot and driving her free one into her chest, causing Chrystal to drop both her blades. Dropping one from the impact of the powerful kick to her wrist, she dropped her other blade to catch Neo’s ankle and heave her in, going to punch her in the face only for her fist to bounce off the girl’s parasol.</p><p> </p><p>Somersaulting backwards, Chrystal grabbed her blades as she went and bounced back into a prepared stance, darting forward again and, knowing exactly how Neo would deflect, feinted with her left blade so she could hop and axe kick onto the girl’s parasol, knocking her off stance, before snapping that same foot into her gut to push her back further, followed with a blade thrust that had Neo urgently twisting her head out of the way of it, but the blade still sliced along the side of her neck, causing her pink aura to ripple even as a decent cut opened up, the first dangerous hit since they’d started.</p><p>Backing up a few paces, Neo left an illusion behind as she darted around to gain some space in Chrystal’s blind spot, forgetting that with her instincts Chrystal <em> didn’t have </em>any blind spots, and her parasol was deflected yet again without Chrystal needing to turn her head, but the cut on her neck had already closed. When she hopped back again, Chrystal followed, and her assault was relentless. But her weakness held true, and her attacks were practically sluggish compared to her defenses, but Neo was still pushed back by the relentless pressure.</p><p>Focusing, Chrystal pushed and pushed, her mind loud and distracted as it always was when she went on the offensive, always overthinking and, for reasons she’d never been able to explain, holding back. But she couldn’t this time.</p><p>She had to stop thinking. Her attacks were too linear, too ordinary compared to how instinctual her defenses were.</p><p>It was the training, it was...something inside of herself.</p><p>And it once again resulted in an opening appearing and Neo slipping inside of it, turning the tables and shattering as she attacked, sliding around Chrystal’s legs and thrusting into her back, her parasol tip stabbing straight through Chrystal’s armour and slicing along her ribs as Chrystal twisted out of the way at the last moment to avoid the worst of the damage, her aura crackling loud enough to be audible over the pouring rain.</p><p> </p><p>Spinning away to create distance, Chrystal looked down at the rip in her armour and grit her teeth in frustration. It was impossible for her to compare Neo to other people she’d fought, the girl’s fighting style and combat philosophy were too unique to be associated with the likes of Huntsmen. Style born from the need to survive by using what she naturally had, instead of formal training to suit a professional cause. Neo’s entire style seemed to obey the same philosophy that Chrystal’s reflexes and instincts forced her defensive style to be. They were the same in so many ways. And thinking over it again had Chrystal’s grip tighten on the hilts on her blades as Neo twirled her parasol and opened it to rest over her shoulder and behind her head, slightly keeping the rain off of herself and waiting patiently.</p><p>Unlike their first fight, this one wasn’t filled with any hatred or rage, instead it was layered with icy desperation coming from both of them. It meant they were practically invisible to the Grimm, the ice over both of their hearts and minds thick enough to mostly hide their desperate need to protect themselves by bringing the other girl down.</p><p>Neo was the one to close the distance, focusing more on her close and flexible style rather than her agile and acrobatic one, pushing Chrystal’s defenses just like Chrystal had pushed hers earlier, but despite Neo’s growing desperation she knew it was increasingly pointless, Chrystal had simply been paying too much attention to her fighting style, and it showed, her reflexes and instincts having taken what she’d seen into account.</p><p>Only a few moves into it, Chrystal reversed and pushed back.</p><p> </p><p>Her own desperation was growing, she needed to get this over with, it needed to end so she could be safe, so Cypher and Petyr could be at least slightly avenged for now, and so she could go back to the others. Hatred and desperation and an ache in her gut that she didn’t let herself think about were clouding her mind louder and louder, and the distraction of them was making her attacks even more sluggish than usual. Pushing into her own mind, she screamed at herself to stop freaking out, to be quiet, for it all to go away. It had to. It all had to wait until later. She had to remember what Brex had tried teaching her over and over again as he’d beaten her until she bled and passed out, day after day;</p><p>Forget discipline, forget the training and the instructors, that wasn’t her.</p><p>Stop trying so hard, stop overthinking and panicking.</p><p> </p><p>Switching to the defensive, she had the freedom to sink into her own mind slightly and grab around at everything that was currently shouting at her and distracting her. All the flooding thoughts about everything happening around her. The anxiety, the hatred, the rage, and she pushed it all away, locking it all up into a box just like she did when she needed to forcibly stop one of her episodes. The quiet in her mind grew, and thoughts faded away, leaving only what was happening around her, what she had to react to. Staying at that lower point in her mind, she finally had the empty space to allow the physical sensations and instincts fill her up, filling her up to the brim.</p><p>She had to be faster. She had to go faster.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Stop thinking so much, stop trying so hard to fight like everyone else taught you how to fight, your reflexes tried to help you develop a unique style for a reason. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Focus. Find it. Go back to that place where it was before you were trained to ignore it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I know you hate going back. But you have to try. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Find it.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sending her physical memory back, her instincts and her training and her discipline, she looked back over the years of training at Pharos Academy, where the instructors had been so frustrated at her for having trouble learning the more conventional sword styles and patterns, with her natural instincts and reactions seeming to have a mind of their own.<br/>But her Semblance had always been like that, even outside of combat. Climbing was the same way. She didn’t overthink how to get up to somewhere she wanted to go, she just...did it, and her semblance guided the way. It was how it had worked with everything right from the first moment in the fire.</p><p>Picking up a sword for the first time hadn’t been any different. Once her instincts knew what she wanted to do, it just...did it.</p><p>When she had been willing and allowed to listen to her instincts, Brex had always said she’d end up an expert swordsman one day. But once she had been bent and pushed into using more conventional styles, he’d only ever referred to her as ‘decent.’</p><p>She’d lost something along the way. And its absence had almost gotten her killed on numerous occasions now.<br/>Including today. So she did something she hated doing, and went back to the very first time her Wind Dance had taken over her instincts and saved her life, and the energy and life that had entered her nerves and senses from then on.</p><p>She had to remember how it felt. Underneath the pouring rain, she had to finally face the fire.</p><p>It hadn't killed her, she'd been awake and out of her window in a matter of moments before she'd even been able to consciously think about her decision, and ever since then she'd been happy hiding and dodging and deflecting the pain of it, and all the pain since. Pain, despair, loss, they were easy to cover up with other things like catharsis and anger, but that didn't didn't make them go away, doing bad things didn't remove bad feelings, it just made them sink a little stronger into who you were. She knew she would never escape the fire entirely, she'd always known, and had instead accepted that it had to be killing her then, just slowly. But maybe it was just a scar, like everything else could be.</p><p>If even after her face was torn open, and the prettiness that had helped her find solace for years was taken from her, someone like Neo could still grab out and reach for her...then maybe some other scars didn't have to take anything away from her as well. After the fire she'd let people force into her how she was meant to <em>face</em> her problems, while letting her <em>protect</em> herself her <em>own</em> way. Something vital had been taken from her, and because of it she kept losing when it mattered. You couldn't dodge and deflect forever, damage will <em>always </em>get through in the end, and that was true for every sort of pain and not just the type sustained in a fight. Eventually you had to drive your foot into the dirt and decide that threats were worth facing.</p><p>She'd been in the process of learning that when it was taken from her by people who forced it into her head that she had to do it their way instead of her own, that she had to go against her nature. But she wasn't <em>like </em>how they were. That had been taken from her as well. If she'd approached the last few days like everyone else but still with her mind the way it was, she wouldn't have survived, she would have broken apart. But because she'd known what helped <em>her </em>she'd been able to use it to keep herself together, and that didn't just include her mercy when she'd protected Neo and given peace to Reika, it included the way<em>she </em>tackled problems.</p><p>If she could ignore her therapist and survive anyway, growing stronger and more intact like she had decided to do the night she'd looked up at the stars and saw the butterfly, why couldn't she ever let herself fight the same way?<br/>They'd tied a knot around the cacoon she'd put around herself and told her that changing into a butterfly was wrong if she wasn't yet a caterpillar in the way that she 'should' be.<br/>But fuck them. People like them didn't survive things that she did.</p><p>So she didn't have to listen to them anymore.</p><p>On the outside, her aura rippled of its own accord, and Neo blinked as Chrystal’s defense shifted enough that Neo’s offense was ground to a halt, Chrystal not being pushed back another step.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Found it.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>When Chrystal opened her eyes again, the brown of them was seemingly shimmering with the same shade of purple as her aura, and a strike of fear went through Neo at the unnatural focus in Chrystal’s eyes as her pupils had dilated entirely, to such a point it was sent a shiver of deep unease through Neo’s core as something...changed.</p><p>And suddenly Neo was on the defensive. But it was different. </p><p>It was fast, way too fast, and while she was able to deflect and avoid to the best of her abilities Chrystal’s moves were suddenly so nonlinear and unorthodox that her eyes were forced to flicker around constantly just to keep track of her blades, legs, and fists, Chrystal often letting go of her blades in the air entirely, tossing them slightly up into the air or leaving them caught on Neo’s parasol to get in rapid unarmed jabs and swipes, just to easily catch her blades as they fell again.<br/>Combined with her legs, which were suddenly also much faster and seemingly more flexible, Neo was no longer focusing on two or three directions of attack, she had to focus on <em> six </em>.</p><p>And Chrystal kept getting faster.</p><p> </p><p>Whenever Neo was forced to shatter, Chrystal was back on her as if she could see Neo while she was invisible, but her instincts simply had her following the splashes in the puddles. Gritting her teeth as her desperation grew, Neo sped up as best as she could, but she didn’t have room or time to get in any counters, she was pushed and chased.</p><p>It could have been moments, it could have been ten minutes, Neo had no way of knowing or keeping track but eventually she went to shatter and escape again but this time she wasn’t fast enough, and Chrystal’s blade slashed down from her shoulder to her waist, her aura crackling and breaking as the blade was halfway down and the edge slicing open her clothes and skin the rest of the way down. Chrystal easily swung through the movement and took advantage of Neo’s complete loss of focus to double kick her arm and wrist and send her parasol up into the air, sweeping her legs out from under her, and as the air was knocked out of Neo’s lungs and the vicious cut in her torso began to gush blood she found herself straddled and with the tip of her own parasol pressed against her throat, Chrystal having tossed away one of her own blades in order to catch it in mid-air.</p><p> </p><p>The rain poured down over them, washing red as blood poured from the deep wound across Neo’s stomach and waist, and she silently whimpered from the pain, beginning to shiver from the shock even as she kept eye contact with Chrystal, the other girl’s eyes returning to normal as she looked down at her, straddling her in such a way that Neo’s blood was soaking into her own pants. Looking down into Neo’s eyes, Chrystal was panting heavily and it wasn’t from exertion, instead she was simply at war.<br/>She wanted with so much of her mind to simply press down and end it, to send Neo on as punishment and justice for what she did. But the past few days, she’d comforted Neo, protected her, fought by her side...gods she’d <em> slept </em>with her and every minute of it was a punishing catharsis. It had felt good.</p><p>She hated this. She hated <em> her. </em>But as they looked into each other's eyes and Chrystal saw the resignation in Neo’s she couldn’t quite make herself do it.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Neo, bleeding out and a blade at her throat, found herself...ready. Every year in her memory had been long, and painful, and hard. She’d gone through things most people could barely imagine, and the one thing that had kept her grounded during those times was gone, he was dead and it was partially her fault. So many people had lost everything they held dear because of the city she’d helped destroy.</p><p>But Roman’s death wasn’t truly <em> her </em> fault. Ruby Rose had killed him, and Cinder Fall had put him into that position in the first place. And Neo knew that even above <em> her </em>, it was Cinder that had all of Chrystal’s hatred as well.</p><p>Neo had lost everything to those two, just like Chrystal had lost everything to her, Cinder and Delilah.</p><p>There was nothing left. She was ready to die.</p><p>It was okay. It didn’t feel like there were many things left to live for even if she survived, anyway. Chrystal was fuelled by hatred and revenge, and it was powerful fuel, but Neo wasn’t sure if she could do the same.</p><p>Could she?</p><p>It wasn’t like she’d have the chance to even try, now.</p><p>And that was okay. Maybe this was easier.</p><p> </p><p>But suddenly, a pair of lips were kissing hers, the tip of her parasol had vanished and instead fingers were lightly stroking through her hair. And the kiss was soft, and warm, and full of gratitude as she felt the hatred and desperation melt out of Chrystal above her. She reached up sorely to wrap her arms around Chrystal’s neck and kiss her back, finally letting herself put at least a <em> bit </em> of true affection into it in gratitude to the girl who’d spared her life once and then looked after her these past days, comforting her and giving her what she needed even if it wasn’t healthy.<br/>They were too damn similar, in ways that neither of them knew how to put into words even though both of them felt it.</p><p>Underneath the constant onslaught of the torrential rain pouring onto them, Neo felt the telltale difference of warm tears dripping onto her cheeks, and she felt one of her own leak out of the corner of her eye as she slid her arms back from around Chrystal’s neck to instead softly cup her scarred face in her hands, wiping away her tears with her gloved thumbs.</p><p>Breaking off the kiss softly, Chrystal rested her forehead against Neo’s gently, brown eyes looking into brown and pink.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you Neo. We made it.”</p><p> </p><p>Giving a confused but genuine small smile, Neo blinked in pain from the wound in her waist as Chrystal straightened up, still straddling her, and she wasn’t able to move or react when the girl’s fist snapped into the side of her head and sent her into unconsciousness.</p><p>Looking down at the knocked-out and profusely bleeding Neo, Chrystal unstraddled her gently and tenderly, wiping the back of her sleeve over her face to clear the strange and unexpected tears from her face and eyes. Biting her lip, she grabbed onto Neo and moved her body over to the cement railing of the roof and propped her up before reaching into one of her supply pouches and grabbing her small first-aid kit, quickly bandaging up and sealing up Neo’s torso wound to hold it bound and closed until her aura kicked back in and closed it. It would leave a truly vicious scar, but she’d live.</p><p>Standing when she was done, she looked down at her silently with a conflicted expression on her face, her hands tightening into fists as indecision warred within her.</p><p>She didn’t have it in herself to kill her. The ice inside of herself had grown potent, and strong, and she’d gotten close.</p><p>She’d won, and she’d had her.</p><p>But she just couldn’t do it. And she hated herself for it even as she was also glad she’d decided not to.</p><p> </p><p>Grabbing her blades from the ground, she sheathed them on her back before grabbing Neo’s parasol, clicking the blade tip away, and resting it over the unconscious girl’s lap, then quickly jogging a few paces away to snatch up Roman’s hat from where it had fallen off during the fight. Making her way back to Neo again, she crouched down next to her and gently placed the hat back on her head and adjusting it into a good-looking position, giving her a small and confused smile.</p><p>“...we’re definitely going to see each other again. That’s just the sort of world we live in. I just hope that when we do, you’ve changed. Right now it appears I’ve still got...mercy, in me. Next time, after everything that might happen...I might not. Please have changed.”</p><p>Cupping the unconscious girl’s cheek for a moment and running her thumb along her impossibly soft skin gently, Chrystal straightened up and stepped away, leaning back so that the rain could wash off any dirt, sweat, and blood from the fight, her aura having already healed the wound along her ribs that was definitely going to leave a scar.</p><p>Hopping up onto the concrete barrier, she glanced over her shoulder at the unconscious girl one last time before letting herself drop down to the ground below, easily landing in a roll as she took off at an easy run through the final streets towards the evac outpost, emerging from the dense streets and out of the city entirely half an hour later and then picking up into a tired sprint the rest of the way across the fields.</p><p> </p><p>Slowing down into a jog as she reached the perimeter of the camp, she raised a hand to one of the guards who nodded and gestured for her to go in, assuming from her weapons that she was a Huntsman, and she stumbled into the camp itself exhausted and swaying on her feet, a small ball of exhaustion that she had been sealing up as it grew over the past four days finally unclenching as she reached safety, and she found herself incredibly woozy.</p><p>“Oh my god. <em> Oh my god. </em>”</p><p>A few moments after hearing the voice, she was tackled and wrapped up tightly in a hug as Velvet stammered her relief in a constant stream while holding her in fierce protectiveness, the rest of team CFVY who had been resting nearby before their next shift in the city reaching them a moment later. Coco slowly extracted Velvet from Chrystal so that she could put her hand on the girl’s shoulder to get her to focus.</p><p>“Chrysalis, come on babe, snap back to it, just until we can get you to a bunk.”</p><p>Still swaying on her feet, Chrystal tried to come back to proper alertness, and she gripped Velvet’s hand tightly in desperation as she gave a helpless and broken laugh of relief and exhaustion, Coco holding eye contact with her before thinning her lips and nodding to Yatsuhashi.</p><p>“Come on, she’s not walking much further, let’s get her to the medics.”</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal didn’t resist when the tall boy scooped her up in his arms, and Velvet didn’t let go of her hand the entire walk to the medical tent. Entering the warm and dry space, it was like a comfortable blanket that had her eyelids flutter as the exhaustion continued to finally hit her now that six days of anxiety and adrenaline began to ease off. Yatsuhashi gently placed her onto one of the bunks while Coco jogged over to get the attention of one of the doctors to come over and check her out, and again she didn’t protest or resist as she was checked over, too tired to even talk as she simply looked between her friends with tearful and relieved barely-open eyes.</p><p>Yatsuhashi and Fox left the room for privacy as her armour was removed so she could be properly checked, and Coco’s expression tightened at the new mass of scars on her body, most of which hidden by her severely ripped tank top, meanwhile Velvet gasped in horror and despair on her behalf. While Neo had certainly left decent cuts and marks, it was the massive slashing scar from Adam that had both of them looking down at her, tracing its length and width with their eyes. Both the one across her face, and then the larger one across her torso.</p><p>It was a miracle she was still alive.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at her sadly, Velvet pressed a kiss to the back of her hand as she held it, and after getting the okay from the doctor and a dry soft shirt put on her, Coco went to the administration tent to inform the professors of Chrystal’s safe return, coming back only a minute later with Professor Firenei and Logan behind her.</p><p>“Oh gods…” Lianna knelt down next to her, Velvet shuffling aside to give her space but refusing to move away entirely. “She’s been struggling in the city for five days.”</p><p>“She’s in stable condition.” The medic reported, looking down at the scribbled notes she’d taken and giving a serious look. “But she’s taken a serious injury, and the exhaustion hasn’t helped her recovery. And while she’s not quite malnourished, she’s either been rationing dangerously or hasn’t been able to keep down food.”</p><p>“Any infections or lingering problems?” Logan asked in a quiet voice, though everyone still overheard it.</p><p>Sighing and relaxing her professional composure, the doctor looked down at Chrystal again with a strained expression. “If the resources were available, I’d have her in for a full psychological evaluation and check-up the moment she was in condition for it. Adjusting to battle is a hard enough mental and emotional journey on its own, but massive injuries and scars such as that regularly result in severe trauma. And being alone in a warzone for five days..”</p><p>Nodding in understanding, and able to relate on a personal level, Logan rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll get her back to her team as soon as she’s ready.”</p><p>“I’m ready.” Chrystal mumbled, finding a final concentrated ingot of energy to slowly push herself up into a sitting position and looking around at them all, giving a tired nod. “I’m ready.”</p><p>“Miss Wasara…” The doctor went to protest, but she gave her a pleading look, and after a moment of hesitation she relented. There were no medical reasons to keep her in, it was just exhaustion, and that was her choice.</p><p>“Chrystal…” Velvet sighed, straightening up in her kneeling position in order to pull the girl back into a hug, though slightly gentler, as Coco sat down on the bunk next to her and placed her hand on her back.</p><p>“I need to get back to them. You two would want the same thing if you had the chance to be reunited after being separated.”</p><p>“Of course we would. We’re not going to stop you, hon. This is just...it’s like a tragic goodbye.” Coco sighed, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her head, and smiling sadly when Chrystal turned her head to face her.</p><p>“I know. But we’ll be back soon.” Chrystal gave a sad smile of her own.</p><p> </p><p>Professor Firenei helped her stand, keeping a careful eye in case she fell over from exhaustion, but her Semblance held her steady, while Coco packed up her armour and harness into a spare travel bag which she promptly shoved into Logan’s arms.</p><p>“Oh...Professor?” Chrystal’s voice was soft and sad as she looked into Lianna’s eyes, and the woman’s own eyes softened as she nodded in concern. Chrystal took in a deep breath, and her voice was quiet. “Team RNBW are...gone. If you need to know that. To keep track of, or whatever.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment, Lianna sighed before nodding sadly and pulling Chrystal into a brief hug, placing her hand on the back of the girl’s head comfortingly. “Oh Chrystal... Thank you for letting us know. But you need to go rest now. Getting out of that city in one piece... You’ve done well.”</p><p>“...doesn’t feel like it.” Chrystal stepped out of the hug and her eyes briefly went far away, but only a moment later she came back to herself and gave a small sad smile.</p><p> </p><p>Coco and Velvet followed Logan and Chrystal towards Logan’s airjet, and Logan let the three girls have their privacy for a moment as he hopped up inside to start the rotors and get things ready to travel.</p><p>With no idea what to say, the three girls merely pulled each other into one large hug, Coco and Velvet holding Chrystal tightly for a few minutes of silent relief and reassurance and affection, before letting go and stepping back.</p><p>“We’ll see you guys when you’re back in action, okay?” Coco gave a smile and a wink, and Chrystal nodded. “Goodwitch is sending us to Vacuo, but we won’t be in the desert forever. Come visit once the airways open again.”</p><p>Smiling, Chrystal nodded again, squeezing Coco’s hand tightly, before Velvet pressed a soft kiss to her cheek.</p><p>“Get home safe, and...I didn’t get the chance before he was evacuated, he was unconscious, but tell Shina...I…” Velvet’s face faltered and her eyes teared up, so Chrystal had mercy on her and nodded to interrupt, a small smile on her lips.</p><p>“I will. He really loves you too, you know. We’ll come find you as soon as we can.”</p><p> </p><p>Smiling wetly, Velvet let Coco wrap an arm around her shoulders as the two girls gave Chrystal small smiles goodbye, unbothered by the rain and the mud beneath their feet as they sadly watched Chrystal hop up the entrance steps onto the comfortable enclosed jet, and the door closed behind her, freeing her from the sound of the storm for the first time since it had started.</p><p>The rotors and engines began to speed up, and she felt the jet lift from the ground as she slumped down onto a couch in the decently sized space, laying down on it properly and closing her eyes. With the almost hypnotic sound of the engines and rotors repeating around her, she was quickly and peacefully lulled into a deep and dreamless sleep.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm really not sure if I'm happy with this chapter or not. But no improvements come to mind. Ugh. Ah well.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Welcome Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>With Chrystal finally returned safely to the others, the other three begin to notice the changes that have happened in their teammate from the things she had been forced to do. With the team coming to an agreement and a basic plan, Chrystal takes advantage of a visit to Ruby and Yang's home to speak to her equally damaged friend in private, and make a promise that both of them needed to hear.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Standing outside the gates of the Goroesi Estate in the morning sun, the travel bag of her stuff slung over her shoulder along with her pouches and backpack already on her back, Chrystal swallowed a lump in her throat as she drummed her fingers on the straps of the bag nervously and tiredly, a thrum of anxiety inside of her gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She glanced next to her where Logan was standing by her side, patiently waiting for her to be ready, and she gave him a scared look.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I...are they okay?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure either.” Logan confessed with a grim look. “I haven’t been home since they were evacuated. But they were all in stable condition when I saw them last, despite their injuries.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After she had woken up close to the end of the decent length flight, Logan had explained what he knew of what happened to her teammates as best as he could. While she’d been relieved that both Kylar and Tacita were stable, hearing about the sheer extent of Shina’s injuries had scared her to the point of panic. It had removed any dread she’d felt at the possibility they’d knowingly left her behind, which she was ashamed to admit to herself was a possibility she’d genuinely considered might be true. But they were her friends, and they wouldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>that.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It didn’t change the fact she’d considered it in the darker moments in the nights, looking into the fire in silence. The reality that they’d been too injured to be awake was even worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she wasn’t in much of a better state than any of them had been in. The scar on her face was horrific, as far as she was concerned, and that said nothing for the much larger one down her torso. She was paler and slightly skinner from malnourishment and exhaustion, and...she felt differently inside. Like she wasn’t herself anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Would they even recognise her? Was she still her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Climbing through the ruins of Beacon, she’d felt herself drop a lot of who she was just to free up the weight to keep moving.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Readjusting her bag on her shoulder, she nodded in determination, and Logan opened the gate for the two of them to walk in and make their way up the long drive towards the house, and she swallowed again as the man opened the front door and they stepped in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Only a few moments later, a Tacita shaped blur was sprinting towards her and tackling her into a hug, and after freezing for only a moment she dropped the bag from her shoulder and hugged her back tight enough she might be hurting her, but Tacita didn’t protest or remark on it, instead tightening her own grip and burrowing her face into Chrystal’s shoulder, and Chrystal did the same. Neither of them said a word, and half a minute later Kylar came into view, his eyes widening as he swung his legs over the bannister and dropped down from the second floor instead of taking the stairs, having been up in the library, and he ran over and wrapped her up in his arms as well, a show of affection so uncharacteristic for him that it almost put her into a form of shock before she wrapped an arm around him as well, sandwiched between the both of them while Logan had moved away to give them privacy, heading off to quickly find Tesse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then she heard footsteps, and a still slightly limping Shina appeared around the corner from having been training in the backyard, Logan having waved him in urgently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Both Tacita and Kylar let go and stepped back, and after a moment of being frozen looking at each other both Shina and Chrystal sprinted for each other and crashed into an impossibly close and tight hug, Shina lifting her off the ground as she jumped at him, his eyes squeezed close as she openly sobbed into his shoulder, and a few worried tears dropped from his own eyes as he put her down and put his hand on the back of her head comfortingly, stroking her hair as his other arm was wrapped around her back comfortingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Giving the pseudo-siblings a minute of distance, the two just holding each other and pressing as close as they could, after a minute both Kylar and Tacita walked over as well and the four of them hugged each other tightly and wordlessly, Shina pressing a kiss to the side of Chrystal’s head. None of them said a word for a long time as they simply held each other close and the pieces of Team SKTC clicked back together, something already returning to life in only those first few moments of being reunited.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eventually letting each other go for the most part, with Shina making sure to hold Chrystal’s hand tightly, Tacita cupped Chrystal’s cheek and softly ran her thumb over Chrystal’s large new scar, her eyes terrified and sad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh sweetheart...what happened to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...it’s been a long week.” Chrystal sobbed out, leaning into the touch and closing her eyes for a few moments to find comfort in it, more tears leaking out and causing Shina to kiss the side of her head again gently. “I...I don’t even know where to start.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The four of them slowly moved up to Kylar’s rather large bedroom and closed the door, Tacita and Kylar sitting on the edge of his bed while Chrystal tentatively removed her belts, putting them into the same travel bag that had her armoured jacket, harness, and weapons, before sinking down onto one of the reading armchairs in the room, Kylar not objecting when Shina loudly dragged another chair over to be right next to his sister.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Letting out a shaky breath, Chrystal looked around at each of them before looking down at her lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So...what have I missed?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coughing out a laugh, Shina rolled his eyes and reached over to take her hand again, giving it a squeeze and his eyes going serious and scared again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You first, because ours is...a long story.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Snorting, Chrystal unconsciously reached up and ran her fingertips over the scar on her face, before turning her head away to hide it as much as possible. The other three glanced at each other, but didn’t say anything, and Shina didn’t move to tilt her head back. Eventually, after composing her thoughts, Chrystal began to tell her story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shina and I got separated, and Adam of the White Fang got me. Hard. I don’t remember much, just a wave of red light and then...the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but only for a split moment and then I was unconscious. When I woke up, it was daylight. Late afternoon, and I was on the ground floor of the old retirement home near campus. I’d been clearing out the White Fang from it, so I was right near a window.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in understanding of the timeline, Shina squeezed her hand and spoke up. “I fought him, and he seemed to get power whenever I hit him, sort of like Yang. I ended up in the Fifth Cut and he must have absorbed the power from it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s what would have hit me, then.” Chrystal nodded, before frowning in shocked concern as she scrutinised him. “You went into the </span>
  <em>
    <span>fifth? </span>
  </em>
  <span>I thought you weren’t sure yet if you could.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m still not sure how I did. But it practically broke me. It’s hard to explain, but it messed up my aura pretty badly. Took me far too long to wake up.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frowning deeper, Chrystal slowly accepted the answer but filed it away for later, and then continued explaining how she’d gone back to the dorm for the night to eat, sleep, and grab supplies, then climbing up the ship for the view of where the outpost was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she found herself hesitating, for quite a few moments, as she reached a critical point in her story. A pit of fear and shame lodged itself into her gut as she thought about the parts of what happened that involved Neo. How could she </span>
  <em>
    <span>possibly </span>
  </em>
  <span>explain what had happened there? To her own team, especially to Shina. The fact she’d killed people was bad enough, but...</span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> was too far for them to simply accept and forgive her for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she found herself lying, omitting Neo entirely. The fight at the base of the ship, the temporary truce, the travelling together and especially what happened during the nights.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But she did tell them about Reika, burying her head in her hands in guilt and self-hatred as she sobbed out apologies to them for having to do it, Tacita sinking to her knees in front of her and putting her hands on her knees to reassure her quietly, all three of them understanding, though it took Kylar a few moments longer than the other two to process it. The idea of a mercy killing sat strangely in him, but when she explained how badly the girl had been injured, and how she’d been dying a slow and agonising death, he’d been able to understand.<br/></span>
  <span>Eventually giving into her silent crying over it, allowing herself to feel the grief for that sweet young girl who she’d respected so much, and had desperately wanted to become friends with after connecting with her and communicating with her during their fight. And she’d been forced to slide a blade into her heart to spare her the agony of slowly choking on her own blood in the middle of the street. The fact she’d had to leave her behind sat horribly in her, but the others reassured her that it was understandable as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But when she’d paused and finally explained a section she’d skipped but knew they deserved to know, the killing of the man in the back room of the shop, she’d been met with silence. She’d expected it, and refused to look up from her lap as she saw the others look at each other at the edge of her vision. When the silence stretched on long enough she could guess how they were each feeling about it, she simply continued and went back to telling what had happened over the days.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then she told them about Delilah, constructing a lie about interrogating a member of the White Fang, about what Delilah had done and her place in it, and all four of them had reacted with rage and hurt at the betrayal, with it rising back up inside of Chrystal as well as she mentioned it. Shina looked down and clenched his jaw at their failure to notice, meanwhile Tacita closed her eyes and centered herself for a few moments.<br/></span>
  <span>Eventually Chrystal finished, and it had taken well over an hour with only the occasional question for clarification from Kylar or Tacita, with Shina simply listening silently and holding her hand the entire time as he let her speak and he took it all in. When she finished, dry tear streaks down her face and deadened eyes, he stood from his chair and squeezed into hers next to her to pull her into a hug, and she snuggled into his side and closed her eyes, finding comfort in his safe and familiar warmth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tacita reached up to stroke her cheek and hair again, and Chrystal turned her head away again so that her scar was hidden into Shina’s shoulder, but this time Tacita put her fingers on Chrystal’s chin and gently guided her so that she was looking at her properly, and Tacita unbuttoned her shirt to reveal her own horrific scar, and Kylar hesitated before lifting his shirt to show his vicious and large burn scars.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Biting the inside of her lip, Chrystal looked around at each of them, and Shina cupped her cheek and pressed a kiss to her forehead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re always going to be one of the most beautiful girls to ever walk through the halls of Beacon academy, Chrysalis.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not many halls left.” She choked out a chuckle with a sad but thankful smile, and Shina rolled his eyes playfully before bopping her on the top of her head, getting a scowl from her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sitting up again, Chrystal took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm herself, and then looked around at the three of them. “Your turn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s...a lot.” Shina gave her a helpless and tense look, and she hesitated before nodding slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just...okay, start with what happened that night. What I missed. Where you two went.” She glanced over to Kylar and Tacita. “What happened after I was knocked out that ended the battle. Just...fill me in on the night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sucking in a breath, Kylar looked to Tacita and the two of them silently decided which one of them would tell, and a few moments later he nodded to accept that it was going to be his job. So he explained what happened with himself and Tacita against Cinder and Emerald as best as he could, how different it had been to fight her, Tacita passing out, and then promising that they would explain the specifics after they were done. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shina went into details about the Fourth and Fifth cuts, the black tendrils that had appeared, and how being in the Fourth had somehow compelled him to go to the Fifth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Listening intently, Chrystal sat back and frowned in thought at the end, crossing her arms over chest and narrowing her eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then Kylar told her what happened with Ozpin dying, and then with Pyrrha and Ruby, and Chrystal took it like a punch in the gut yet again, another person she cared about yanked away from her as she violently stood from her chair and walked over to the large window overlooking the ground, turning so she was hiding her face but the others could still see her trembling with clenched fists by her sides, and the stifled sobs that she didn’t manage to silence entirely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Another one…” She choked out with a furious cough, gritting her teeth and shaking her head before looking down at the ground. “Pyrrha...she was…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The one who was meant to survive, I know.” Shina nodded in understanding at what she was thinking, standing and walking over next to her, placing his hand on her back gently but not coddling her any further than that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clenching her fists in furious and exhausted grief, Chrystal had no ice inside herself to protect her anymore, so she couldn’t stop herself from feeling it, simply letting tears drop down to the floor. But she didn’t have many of them left to cry either, in fact the mere act of dropping tears hurt her eyes and cheeks from doing it so much over the past week. So mostly she trembled, clenched tight and grinding her teeth so tightly that her jaw was killing her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything else?” Her voice was wavering, but there was a determination in it that had the others explain their own personal details. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Particularly how Kylar’s and Tacita’s Semblances had evolved, and while Chrystal asked questions and her mood turned from grief to fascination she still didn’t turn away from the window. </span>
  <span>And then she explained how she’d...found her way back to who she was a long time ago, and she was speeding up and had gotten even more agile and flexible somehow. Kylar didn’t say it out loud, but it was clearly her own Semblance growing, but that was a conversation for later when she could show what she could do, likely against Shina.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The final tears dropping down her cheeks, she turned to face the others and fixed them each with a determined and focused look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s something you’re not telling me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kylar and Shina looked at each other and gave each other hesitant looks, unsure if Chrystal was in the right headspace for </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>particular conversation and those revelations about the world and why everything had happened, but Tacita refused to disrespect their friend by pitying her, so she took it as her turn to explain everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ozpin was hiding so much from us, Chrystal. And I wish you’d been here for the initial explanation, both Tesse and Logan know the proper details, but...we can explain what we can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the other three were done, each of them filling in small blanks that the others had forgotten or explained poorly, Chrystal stared at the three of them silently, her face entirely unreadable as her mind became the dangerous sort of whirlwind she always tried so hard to keep at bay. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Behind her eyes, she was in a mixture of complete disbelief and immense fury, and she wasn’t sure which one to focus on and process first.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It wasn’t all totally impossible. So many impossible things had happened in the past week that she was willing to accept anything at this point, even if it took her a while, but this was on the edge of that tolerance. Slowly, her eyes moved between her friends, unblinking and sealed off as she took in their expressions. They were dead serious, and it was written in Kylar’s eyes in particular that he believed it entirely. Clashing with Cinder was all the proof he had needed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It meant that the attack hadn’t been out of hatred, or a desire for destruction or dominance. It had been breaking and entering, on a larger scale. A burglary designed to be destructive, that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was, in the end. A massacre so Cinder could steal power and grab a relic, and they weren’t even sure whether or not she’d managed to grab it. Which meant it had all been for nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If it </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> been for hatred, if it had been emotionally or morally justified as part of some opposing code of ethics, she’d find it easier to understand. But this also made it easier to understand Neo’s fear, and her pleading explanations that she and Roman had lost any freedom to choose or get out once they were in deep enough. A power beyond their comprehension, beyond </span>
  <em>
    <span>any </span>
  </em>
  <span>of their comprehension, was playing them like puppets.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>A monster called Salem, and the power of Maidens, and Relics.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>None of it felt entirely impossible. But reality had always been a bit fuzzy to her anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what do we do?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“According to Tesse, Professor Ozpin had a plan for the four of us. The Spring Maiden, Rowena, has apparently gone missing and has </span>
  <em>
    <span>been </span>
  </em>
  <span>missing for a while, and he thought we were the best suited to go and find her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A search mission for Team SKTC. How surprising.” Chrystal sighed, shaking her head in amusement as she sank back down into her chair. The others were quiet, and she noticed they were looking at her with confused eyes. She blinked. “...what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re taking this...</span>
  <em>
    <span>much </span>
  </em>
  <span>better than any of us did.” Kylar raised an eyebrow, a bewildered look on his face, and she simply shrugged with a small smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Guys, this has always been the sort of world we’ve lived in. It was always bigger, and darker, and more horrific than the academy was telling us. Are you really surprised?” She frowned as she looked around at the three of them, and her eyebrows went up as they looked at her silently, she sighed. “Optimists. I’m personally just relieved that there are rules to it. Of a sort, anyway. Do we know what the relics </span>
  <em>
    <span>do?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If my parents know, my mum didn’t tell us. And she’s not one for lying.” Kylar shook his head, crossing his arms in thought. It was a good point. Four relics that embodied the core concepts of human nature. They each had to do </span>
  <em>
    <span>something.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If we don’t know what they do, then there’s no way of predicting which one they might prioritise first.” Tacita spoke up with a concerned frown on her face. “Which means we have no idea how long we have to find the Spring Maiden. </span>
  <em>
    <span>If </span>
  </em>
  <span>we go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that in question?” Chrystal looked around at each of them, and her eyebrows raised again when she saw them all looking at her expectantly. Tacita raised her eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were sort of leaving that vote for when you got back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then of <em>course</em> we’re going.” Saying it as if it were obvious, Chrystal gave them each a bewildered look. “I’m not letting what happened to our home happen to anywhere else. I saw and </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> things in the last week that…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sighed, closing her eyes and looking away. “Things that I’ll never forget. I haven’t slept without nightmares in days and I doubt they’re going away anytime soon. I don’t have it in me to let it happen to anywhere else. And what happened to Pyrrha? I can’t just sit and let that happen to someone else either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Half doing it to drive her point home, half doing it out of a feeling of empty sadness, she reached up and ran the tips of her fingers along the scar on her face, tracing it from the top of her forehead down to near her chin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, I vote yes. We have to. For the people we lost because Beacon wasn’t ready. Cypher, Petyr, Reika, Pyrrha…” Chrystal choked out the names, but her determination held steady and she put her hands on her lap, clenching them on her pants tightly. “Not again.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pausing as they each thought over it, the three of them had each already made their decision surrounding it, and Kylar nodded as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I vote yes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too.” Tacita’s voice was more lucid than normal, and filled with determination, as she looked around at the others.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The three of them looked to their team leader, who knew he had the final vote and that if he said no then it wouldn’t happen, which meant he had to think about it more carefully than the others. While Logan could get them back to the mainland, that was as far as he could take them, with airspace being closed.<br/></span>
  <span>It meant travelling from the coast of Vale, across the entire continent of Sanus, and then somehow crossing the ocean to Anima, then </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> travelling to the wilds kingdom of Mistral, where Rowena’s home town was located within the forests. If he still had his quadbike, it would be a faster trip, but it was likely destroyed in the ruins of Beacon, so it meant travelling entirely on foot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The trip to Mistral territory itself would take </span>
  <em>
    <span>months </span>
  </em>
  <span>of walking, and then they’d be searching through forest to try and find </span>
  <em>
    <span>one </span>
  </em>
  <span>person. And if Salem was finally making her moves to grab the Maidens and the Relics, they had to move </span>
  <em>
    <span>fast.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Putting his head in his hands, he let out a deep breath of concern before voicing the harder realities of what they were considering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we do this, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>going to be the same as recon missions through the outer territories of the city of Vale. There’s no turning back from the moment we’re on the mainland, since there’s no scroll reception. No safety line, no oversight, no evacuation. The moment we step on the coast, it’s either succeed or die.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The others each paused and considered the harsh reality of it. A drive to do the right thing, the good thing, was all noble and righteous, but that didn’t make it easy. This was a mission to the death, with no turning back, and the idea was scary enough to make each of them have to focus on their breathing for a few moments. They could get sick. They could starve. Winter was only two months away, they could get caught in the freeze. There was no guarantee the towns they might pass through would have supplies for sale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if they were too late, if they were too slow, not only could the Maiden be taken and it would all be for nothing, but Haven might burn because they simply weren’t good enough in time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But none of them changed their minds. So Shina eyed each of them for a few more moments before giving a nod.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay. Then yes. But each of us are still injured, we’re not back to full strength yet. We heal, we see what we’re capable of once we’re back to strength, then we form a plan and get to work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With nods, the others each agreed, and Tacita let out a readied breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So where do we start?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to go talk to my dad now that he’s back. When my mum spoke about the other members of Ozpin’s inner circle alongside her own team, she mentioned a man named Qrow, and I recognised the name. Yang and Ruby’s uncle.” Kylar stood and stretched, looking around at the others and raising his eyebrows. “He helped bring Ruby and Yang back to Patch, and he might still be here. Chrystal, was there any sign of him at the camp?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shook her head, but then sighed in disappointment. “Not that I could see, but I </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>on the edge of passing out the entire time. I’ve also only seen the guy like...once, from a distance. So I don’t know. Your dad will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep. He will.” Kylar nodded, and glanced around at the others. “And if this Qrow guy </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>still here, I’d like to talk to him. He might have details that my parents don’t, since they’ve both been retired for so long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t mind visiting Ruby and Yang just to check on them either.” Chrystal nodded, standing as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Agreed. Yang...didn’t get out of it well, apparently.” Shina winced, and Tacita nodded in confirmation, having already been astral projecting by that point.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chrystal scoffed and gave each of them a pointed look, raising her eyebrow. “Who the hell </span>
  <em>
    <span>did?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>While Logan had been hesitant to let them know about Qrow, he couldn’t argue with the fair point that Kylar made about them needing as much recent information as possible, and he had confirmed that Qrow was still on Patch, overseeing Ruby’s recovery for now since he knew more about the silver-eyed warriors than most.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Patch was a decent sized island, and Ruby and Yang’s house was a two hour walk away, but the weather was nice now that the rains were gone and the sun was emerging, and it gave the four teenagers a chance to just be around each other again and reattune to each other, falling back into rhythm as they walked and talked. While Chrystal wasn’t back to full strength yet, the sleep on the jet had been deep and refreshing, so she had enough in her for the walk, having changed into one of the intact backup shirts she’d brought with her now that her tank top was basically shredded from her showdown with Cypher.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d also borrowed a pair of jeans from Kylar, scowling at the terrible fit since her butt and legs were so much larger than his scrawny self, but she managed to get them on without a verbal complaint, since beggars can’t be choosers. She hadn’t exactly prioritised comfy casual pants when she’d packed her bag for her life-or-death trip through a warzone, so she was without.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Having verbally made a mental note to herself to grab some changes of clothes before their trip, Kylar had laughed and offered to pay, which she had gratefully hugged him for.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tacita and Shina had also slightly humbled her by reminding her that neither of them had any changes of clothes </span>
  <em>
    <span>at all</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as they’d yet to make a trip into town to buy anything, meanwhile at least </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>had fresh shirts and underwear, and she’d nodded to concede the point. The three of them had been evacuated in a hurried emergency, and hadn’t been able to return to their dorm and pack even just basic supplies. But given what she’d gone through afterwards, the scales weren’t exactly tilted in her favour from it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In fact as far as Kylar was concerned, he believed that the scales were so uneven that buying her clothes wouldn’t be enough to even them out. And Tacita felt the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a shadow to Chrystal’s eyes now that had her ache to look at.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The four of them enjoyed the walk into town regardless, Chrystal grabbing breakfast on the way through to have her first proper meal in a week, and sighing in satisfaction as her body thanked her for it with a rush of endorphins, along with how good it had tasted compared to combat rations. If she never saw a packet of noodles again, it’d be too soon. But she also knew she’d be back to eating them once again when they hit the road, and she hated it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once they were done, they simply kept heading on their way, feeling no need to rush since there wasn’t exactly a time crunch for what they had to do. They wouldn’t be ready to leave for at least a fortnight no matter what they did today, since Kylar still had to finish rebuilding his staff and both herself and Shina still had healing and rehabilitation to do, so considering Chrystal had only just returned they took it as a day off, practically meandering on their way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was comforting to her, and for the first time in ages she felt knots of tension leave her neck and shoulders, finding such a degree of relief in not having to carry any weapons that she could cry from how good it felt after having to sleep with a blade in her hand for a week, and barely getting four hours of sleep a night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun was warm on their faces and skin as they made their way out of the town and into the fields of the small properties, Tacita eventually breaking off from the four of them to go and visit her parents, intending on staying for dinner, and she gave each of them a hug, squeezing Chrystal tightly for a few moments longer than the others, before smiling and skipping away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Being reminded that Patch was Kylar and Tacita’s actual home had Shina and Chrystal’s moods go slightly somber, knowing that it might even be </span>
  <em>
    <span>years </span>
  </em>
  <span>before they returned to their own home, and there wasn’t even a way to let Shina’s parents know they were both even still alive, since global communications were down. While they knew his parents would doubt they were dead, believing in them, they still missed them.<br/></span>
  <span>But it was what it was, and they gave each other a silent look as they each knew the other one was thinking about it as well, and they shared a sad smile before catching up to Kylar, who they had slightly fallen behind while lost in their thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Having gotten the directions from Logan which Kylar had easily memorised, they each smiled in delight when they reached their friends’ house. It was quaint and cosy, even from the outside, with plenty of room for what was clearly a sparring area, a workshop attached to the main house, and the main house itself was a decent sized cottage. It reminded both Chrystal and Shina a lot of Shina’s home, except it looked comfier and smaller, so they both gave each other a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kylar clicked his tongue as he glanced at his teammates and raised his eyebrows, the three of them silently debating who should knock before both Kylar and Chrystal looked at Shina in unison and he rolled his eyes in resignation, smirking at them both as he walked up to the front door and knocked, stepping back with Chrystal and Kylar just behind each shoulder politely so they weren’t crowding the door.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Only a few moments later it was answered by an incredibly kind-faced blonde man, who from a simple glance was clearly the girls’ father, with Yang’s hair colour and Ruby’s smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello? Oh hello!” The man seemed to vaguely recognise them after a moment, and he gave a small and curious smile, resting on the doorframe casually “Team...Sketch, right? From Beacon…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes sir.” Shina nodded, reaching out with his hand. “I’m Shina, this is Kylar and Chrystal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two others gave smiles, Chrystal giving a slightly awkward wave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s good to meet you. I watched your matches. I’m Taiyang, but call me Tai.” Tai took Shina’s hand and gave it a firm shake, and his smile turned more somber and serious. “...it’s good to see that you kids got out. I’d heard that only three of you got out immediately, so it’s good to see you’re finally back with us Chrystal.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Flinching slightly, Chrystal resisted the urge to turn her face away as the man looked at her with sympathetic and understanding eyes, and she simply gave a nod. “Thank you sir. It was a long week, so...good to be back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can imagine...I’m sorry for what happened. Truly. Please, come in.” Tai stepped to the side and beckoned them in. “What can I do for you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, most of all we were hoping if we could see Ruby and Yang. To...check on them.” Shina faltered towards the end, and after a moment’s pause Tai nodded in understanding, a sad look on his face as he gave a sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure Ruby will be happy to see you, she’s up in her room, but Yang...she’s still resting for the most part.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a clear lie, but there was no way in hell they were calling him out on it, instead merely nodding in acceptance before Kylar spoke up with a determined and polite look.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’d also like to speak to Qrow Branwen, if he’s available.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tai stilled, and he frowned as he closed the door behind them, gesturing for them to take seats if they wanted to, but didn’t judge them for it when all three of them elected to remain standing even as they moved into the larger space. The three of them were still instinctively skittish and on-guard, and it was an instinct that likely wouldn’t fade for a few more days for Shina and Kylar, and likely far longer for Chrystal.<br/></span>
  <span>It was a lingering trauma from experiencing battle, and Tai didn’t even need to know Chrystal very well to know that for her it would sink in far deeper than for the other three. It would for anyone, and his lips thinned into a grim expression of concern. But then he went back to what Kylar had asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What about, exactly?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Thinking of how to word it in such a way that Tai would understand what they were talking about, but vague enough that a lie would be easy in case Ruby and Yang overheard, Kylar bit the inside of his bottom lip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ozpin wanted something from us, that he can give us information about. It’s...about Rowena.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, Tai sucked in a breath as he tensed. It had been a long time since he’d heard that young woman’s name, and the kids in front of him wouldn’t know it for no reason. And Kylar’s parents wouldn’t break the secret unless they had good reason to. </span>
  <span>So he relented slightly, giving a small frown. “Sure. He’s due back in around half an hour from a meeting with a friend, so if you’re still with Ruby then I can grab you when he gets back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you sir.” Kylar nodded in gratitude, and Tai smiled slightly and gestured with his head towards the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Third door on the right, and give it a loud knock. She wears her headphones a lot. She’ll be happy to see you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kylar and Shina smiled their gratitude and made their way towards the stairs, with Chrystal lingering behind. The girl turned to Tai.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I’d really like to at least...try, to see Yang, sir. I know what happened to her and…” She sucked in a breath before tentatively reaching up to draw attention to her scar with her fingers, swallowing. “Please?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Staring at her sadly for a few moments, the girl in front of him incredibly fragile and hurt much like his dragon was, with both of them having gone through so much, Tai gave a small but hesitant nod of understanding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t promise she’ll let you. She’s...handling as best she can, but…” He sighed. “Two doors down from Ruby’s.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling in sad and vulnerable gratitude, Chrystal nodded. “...thank you sir.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Following her friends up the stairs, knowing Tai was watching her go with a sad and concerned look in his eyes, she tried her best to ignore it as she hopped upstairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking at where she had vanished, Tai shook his head sadly and went back to the kitchen to clean. He’d watched SKTC’s team match, and then the doubles with Shina and Chrystal, and the girl who had winked and grinned to the cameras and laughed in joy in matches even as she’d been dropped during the doubles round...was gone.<br/></span>
  <span>While there was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>chance </span>
  </em>
  <span>of it, sometimes parts of a person lost in war and battles don’t grow back. And she was far too young.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they could all </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope </span>
  </em>
  <span>that their kids would be okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shina glanced over at Kylar and Chrystal with raised eyebrows as they stood outside of Ruby’s closed bedroom door, and he gave them a hopeful smile before knocking loudly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come in!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Turning the handle casually and opening the door slightly, Shina gave Ruby a grin when the girl looked up from where she was reading on her bed, and her eyes widened in surprise before she tossed her magazine aside and shot to her feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shina?? Guys?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Opening the door, Shina met her halfway across her room as the two team-leaders pulled each other into a hug. They didn’t know each other particularly well, but that didn’t matter. Not right now, not after what had happened.<br/></span>
  <span>They were both survivors, and that was a strong enough bond now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Shina stepped back, Ruby looked to Kylar and Chrystal with a wide smile, but when her eyes got to Chrystal she gasped and her smile vanished, replaced with a worried look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I...Chrystal…” She stepped forward and hugged the other girl, and Chrystal flinched her face away, but hugged back all the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m alright. I’m okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We...when you didn’t...Uncle Qrow said no-one had found you.” Ruby sniffed, and Chrystal hesitated a moment before hugging her closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here now. I got out. I’m okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t want to have lost you too…” Ruby whimpered quietly, and Chrystal nodded in agreement as she held her, having no idea what else to say to reassure her, so simply holding her while the young girl shivered in anxiety and reassurance at the same time in her arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually Ruby let her go and stepped back, having to look up slightly to meet Chrystal’s eyes, and she gave her scar a sad look. “Are you okay?...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Long story. But I’m okay. Are you? I...well, we heard about what you did.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Heh, yeah...I still don’t understand it, but…” Ruby sat down on her bed and shuffled back, and patted it for the others to do the same and join her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kylar and Shina hesitated, but Chrystal happily pulled her boots off and flopped down to join the younger girl, getting amused grins from the two boys and a giggle from Ruby. Chrystal sighed in happiness as she laid on a properly soft surface for the first time in almost a week, with the bench in the jet being padded but not </span>
  <em>
    <span>soft, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and having not been able to stretch out on the armchair at Kylar’s place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a damn comfy bed. Why’d you ever leave for Beacon?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Giggling again, Ruby smiled at Chrystal, happy that the girl clearly still had her sense of humor, and Chrystal gave her a wink and sat up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But seriously Ruby, you okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think so? I’m getting headaches, but Uncle Qrow says they’ll go away. But other than that I’m okay. Just…” The girl sighed and shrunk in on herself a little bit, and Shina crossed his arms as he leant back against the nearest wall, Kylar sitting down in Ruby’s desk chair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shina nodded in understanding, his eyes saddening more than he’d been letting them for a few moments. “Yeah…I don’t think any of us are okay again yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heh. Putting it a bit...mildly.” Ruby nodded, looking up at Shina sadly, and he met her eyes with a sympathetic look of his own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Ruby...I’m sorry that you had to see what you did.” Shina winced and shook his head sadly. “With Pyrrha.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...yeah.” Ruby said quietly, folding her hands on her lap and looking down at them, her eyes tearing up slightly after only a few moments. “Just wasn’t...fast enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know the feeling, right now.” Chrystal reached out and took one of Ruby’s hands in hers, giving it a squeeze, and Ruby looked up and met her eyes sadly, before the younger girl’s eyes widened as something occurred to her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Chrystal, I...at the airjet bay, I heard...Petyr…is...is it true?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking down as well, Chrystal swallowed the lump that appeared in her throat. “...yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“<em>I</em></span>
  <em>
    <span><em>’m</em> so sorry</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I…Chrystal...” Ruby stammered out in a horrified and desperate need to comfort, only to stop when Chrystal squeezed her hand affectionately and shook her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No it’s okay, it’s okay. Well, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>okay. But..it’s okay.” Stammering slightly as well, she looked back up and met Ruby’s eyes. “We all lost.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nodding quietly, Ruby looked around at each of them. “So...what are you four going to do now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the four of them glanced at each other, unsure about what they could even say, how much they’d have to lie, Ruby furrowed her eyebrows as she took in their looks. “You guys are planning something…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The four of them were quiet, before Shina nodded and answered, </span>
  <em>
    <span>technically </span>
  </em>
  <span>telling the truth. “We’re heading to Mistral. As soon as we can. After what happened at Beacon…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...right. That’s...that's a good idea.” Ruby nodded, a glimmer behind her own eyes, and Tacita raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat, causing Ruby to flush at being called out, and she mumbled. “I’ve been thinking about it as well. About what’s going on out there. The world.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The four of them were quiet for a few moments before Shina finally walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed so he could talk softer and with more closeness. “Yeah. Us too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You heard anything from Jaune and the others?” Chrystal gave Ruby’s hand another squeeze when Ruby’s face fell and she shook her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No...I think I know where they are, and I’ve sent them a letter. But it’s going to take ages to get there. So I’m worried.” Ruby’s voice got softer and more fragile with each word. “I hope they’re okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jaune is almost annoyingly lucky, and both Ren and Nora are tougher than most.” Chrystal spoke reassuringly, making sure Ruby met her eye, and she gave her a confident nod. “They’ll be okay. They’ll just...they’re going to be in pain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in understanding, Ruby let out a small sigh and closed her eyes for a few moments, reaching up to rub them as if they were sore. Blinking a few times again, she seemed to chuckle at a thought, and she looked around at the other three.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I feel like I’m going to be tired for the rest of my life.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Snorting, Chrystal gave a large nod of agreement, meanwhile Shina and Kylar simply grinned at each other and their friends. As Kylar looked at her properly, Ruby did look exhausted, but there was still a strange glow inside of her that shimmered underneath the surface, and despite being dimmed and hurting it was still solid. Vibrancy was lost, but not the consistency.<br/></span>
  <span>Blinking his own eyes a few times, his vision returned to normal and colours faded away. He still wasn’t great at controlling it, and he frowned at himself when he regarded Ruby, who had been glowing in his new form of sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Filing the information away for later, he simply buried his head in his hands stressfully and groaned, and Ruby giggled in response.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yep. That’s about it.” She paused for a moment in thought, before looking to Shina. “When are you guys planning on leaving for Haven?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As soon as we can, in all honesty. We aren’t planning on heading straight for Haven, we’re going to try and swing through as many of the larger towns and hubs on the way to warn them and try and help, as well.” Shina found the lie rather easy to construct, but that was likely because it was largely based on the truth and his own side intentions. There was a large chance that the towns and villages in Mistral were completely in the dark, just like they were in Vale now. And if SKTC passed through any, they had a duty to help. From the looks in Chrystal and Kylar’s faces, they agreed with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in approval, Ruby gave a small smile. “Then...I’ll do the same, as quick as I can. But I’ve gotta talk to Jaune and the others first. We’ll do this together. I just can’t <em>leave</em> straight away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in understanding, Shina let out a stressed breath. “It’s a hard trip, so be careful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pfft, rich coming from you four.” Ruby waved it off playfully, and Chrystal snorted, reaching over to ruffle her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re leaving as soon as we’re able and we’ll get there as fast as we can.” Chrystal smiled, moving her hand from Ruby’s hair to her shoulder and gripping it. “We’ll meet up with you at Haven as soon as you get there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in agreement, Ruby fiddled with her hands anxiously as she looked down at her lap again, speaking in a quiet voice. “It might not even make a difference, but we’ve gotta try, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah...I get that.” Shina sighed, crossing his arms tighter over his chest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Thinking her own thoughts to herself as the other three continued to talk, Chrystal sat quietly as her mind wandered in a few different directions, but always coming back to memories from the past week. No matter how many jokes she made, how much she talked with the others, how nice the walk had been, she couldn’t get them out of her head. The memories of the night of the battle had cleared up almost entirely, and she remembered </span>
  <em>
    <span>most </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the days stranded and struggling in the city, but she always had trouble remembering specifics whenever her mind went fuzzy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she had most of it, and could reassemble the rest. Frowning again and looking down at the bedspread, the still sensitive skin of her face gave a small thrill of pain at the slight stretch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Feeling a spark of panic go through her, she startled, and the other three looked at her. Catching her breath, she waved them off with a smile, and slowly stood her to feet, nodding to them sadly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m...going to go check in on Yang, if she’ll let me. Come grab me when you’re leaving?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frowning at her, Shina nodded while Kylar simply looked at her quietly. Ruby’s face fell in concern, and then became sad as she held Chrystal’s eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yang’s...just don’t take it to heart if…” She sighed and swallowed. “I don’t know. I don’t even know…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay Ruby.” Chrystal bent down and pressed an affectionate kiss to the girl’s forehead, sighing. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was so worried about all of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too...come visit again before you guys go?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nodding as she straightened back up, Chrystal gave a small smile as she made her way out of Ruby’s room, the other three already talking quietly again as she closed the door behind her and closed her eyes for a moment to center herself, her heart still hammering in her chest for absolutely no reason. Taking in a deep breath, she tried to calm down, feeling the pins and needles on the edge of her mind. Shaking her head to clear them, she glanced over at Yang’s door and made her way down the hall towards it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Staring at it for a few moments, she knocked. The pause was long, more than just a few seconds, and when Yang called out the deadness in her voice had Chrystal suck in a breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...who is it?” Yang’s voice was quiet, and drained, and Chrystal bit the inside of her lip even as she answered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here to deliver a kissogram.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Chrystal?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Taking it as permission, Chrystal cranked the door open and peeked in, giving a small smile to where Yang was curled up on her bed, her hair wild and unkempt and the stump of her arm bandaged tightly. The blonde girl’s eyes widened slightly and her breath caught in her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I thought you were…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Still here.” Chrystal smiled a bit wider, stepping in properly. When she entered the direct light of the room and left the shadow of the doorway, her entire face became visible to Yang, and something in Chrystal’s blood turned to ice when the girl gasped and her eyes widened further as she took in Chrystal’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any time I imagined you gasping looking at me, it wasn’t with <em>that</em> tone.” Chrystal </span>
  <em>
    <span>tried</span>
  </em>
  <span> to joke as she closed the door behind her and made her way over, sitting on the edge of Yang’s bed, the girl still staring at her scar before forcing herself to look into Chrystal’s eyes instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yang’s voice was pained. And scared. And drained to being almost dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I thought you were...</span>
  <em>
    <span>we </span>
  </em>
  <span>thought you were…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Leaning in and hugging Yang tightly, Chrystal shook her head, before sighing in relief when Yang gently and nervously wrapped her remaining arm around her and hugged her back, but she was shaky enough in the movement it was as if it was suddenly alien to her, and Chrystal pulled back after only a few moments.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your hair looks like hell.” Chrystal raised an eyebrow, and Yang snorted in half-amusement as she raised her own eyebrow, but there was no true commitment to the attitude and she looked away after only a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just my hair, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing where her mind was automatically going, and unsurprised, Chrystal couldn’t stop the reflex to slide in her own comment. “Well your face is still prettier than mine.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yang jolted, and she looked back to Chrystal’s face, her eyes flicking to her scar on reflex before she forced herself not to notice it again. But Chrystal shook her head, even as she felt nausea boil up in her gut and shame shiver over her skin. She looked down at Yang’s bedsheets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay. Maybe a <em>bit</em> too soon. My bad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I...god, Chrystal. What happened to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was going to ask you the same thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…” Yang hesitated, looking down at the stump of her arm and her voice quietened. “I lost a fight, is all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Adam.” Chrystal nodded in understanding, and Yang jolted again, blinking in surprise and looking at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...how do you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Blake told me as she carried you away.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the mention of Blake, Yang went silent and looked down at her sheets again, her free hand bundling her blanket up in her fist and clenching it tight. Chrystal was silent, looking away out the window as Yang sank into her thoughts, content not to say anything while Yang went through the thoughts she needed to go through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. She’s gone too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding silently at Yang’s brokenhearted words, Chrystal sighed. “I know. I saw her while I was travelling through the city. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quiet for another moment, Yang shook her head without looking up. “I don’t care.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t blame you.” Chrystal shrugged, and Yang finally looked up at her with a sad but confused expression. “I’d feel the same way, Yang.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Staring at her quietly for a few moments, seemingly confused at the unexpected acceptance, Yang’s eyes accidentally went to her scar again. It was as if she was searching for something as she looked at it. “What happened to you, Chrystal...?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh this?” Chrystal snorted and pointed to the scar on her face. She stood and lifted up her shirt, showing the massive scar along her entire torso. “Or this one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yang startled and gasped, her eyes widening as she looked at it. It was long, and wide, and clearly from a wound that went dangerously and brutally deep that didn’t get any treatment or stitches before her aura had done the first layer of work. Yang hadn’t even seen a scar quite like it, certainly not to that size, and she sat back slightly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I...oh <em>f</em></span>
  <em>
    <span>uck</span>
  </em>
  <span>…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Pretty much how I reacted when I first saw them too.” Chrystal snorted as she lowered her shirt again and sat back down on Yang’s bed. “Same thing as you. Adam.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Freezing for a moment, Yang’s eyes were conflicted and broiling like a storm for a moment before they eventually broke and saddened greatly, and Chrystal took the opportunity to shuffle up the bed and lay down with her, Yang hesitating for only a few moments before moving closer into the contact, the two of them finding a degree of comfort in the solidarity. Laying quietly for quite a few minutes, Yang eventually spoke again, her voice quiet and vulnerable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...what are we meant to do now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to keep doing the same thing I’ve been doing for the last five days of hell.” Chrystal sighed and shrugged, only elaborating once Yang looked over at her. Chrystal thinned her lips and raised her eyebrows. “Keep giving in to the need to stagger on. It kept me alive. I reckon it can keep doing it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...it’s so fucking bad that you got trapped. I’m sorry.” Yang said quietly, shaking her head slowly and sadly. “I can’t…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay. It was a long night followed by a long week.” Chrystal readjusted so she could look across at Yang properly, a small glow of warmth in her chest when Yang finally adjusted her own position so she could do the same. “I didn’t really </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to survive. After Petyr and Cypher, I felt as-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Being cut off when Yang’s eyes widened in confusion followed by realisation, the girl blanched as if the wind was punched out of her. “Oh </span>
  <em>
    <span>god</span>
  </em>
  <span>...I...I didn’t know. Chrystal…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t. Please. It’s okay. We all lost that night.” Chrystal sighed, pointedly flicking her eyes to Yang’s lack of arm, and the girl immediately sobered and looked down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah...yeah.” Speaking quietly, Yang shook her head. “How are we meant to keep going when we don’t even want to? After what we’ve lost?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know.” Chrystal answered honestly, shuffling forward to rest her forehead against Yang’s, both girls closing their eyes. “Every night in the ruins I thought about giving up. But somehow I didn’t and here I am. I’m alive but I feel like I got something I didn’t even want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in a degree of understanding, Yang spoke quietly and brokenly, a few tears leaking from her closed eyes. “I feel like too many pieces of me have been broken off. I can’t fight anymore, or do much at all. My team is gone, with one of them taken away and the other...abandoning me. Our </span>
  <em>
    <span>home </span>
  </em>
  <span>is </span>
  <em>
    <span>gone</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not replying with words, Chrystal simply nodded and stayed where she was, forehead resting against Yang’s and both girls close enough they could feel each other’s body heat and find a degree of comfort in being close to maybe the only person nearby who could start to understand what they were going through, in their own way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither were sure how long they stayed that way, Yang almost dozing off half a dozen times, but eventually Chrystal’s scroll went off from the short-range network, a message from Shina telling her that Qrow was ready to meet with them down the walking trails in private. Sighing as she read the message, Chrystal almost went to toss her scroll away but Yang shook her head and sat up, not having read the message but she figured the gist of it from Chrystal’s reaction.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay. Stick with them. You going to be on Patch for a while?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...only a bit longer. The four of us are going to try and head to Mistral, in case they’re next.” Chrystal sighed, giving Yang a sad half-smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding, unable to keep the dejection out of it, Yang gave her a sad smile back. “Well...good luck. And...thank you for coming. I missed you, and...I was...you..I thought you....” She faltered and looked away, before freezing in surprise when Chrystal softly pressed a fond kiss to her forehead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I knew that coming to see you was going to be one of the first things I did once I got out of Vale. You’re one of my best friends, Yang. Of course I came.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling up at Chrystal in gratitude as Chrystal stood and pulled her boots back on, Yang shuffled down into her own bed again and her face grew sad and low. “I really am sorry, about…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...yeah.” Chrystal paused as she straightened up properly, and she had to close her eyes for a few moments. “Me too. I really loved them. And now the people I loved, are gone. And...it doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to get better or...you know...whatever.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She sighed and deflated before she got to the end of her sentence, and Yang gave a snort of dead agreement as she looked up at Chrystal again, the only person who knew her secret.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Whatever’</span>
  </em>
  <span> about covers it.” Yang’s eyes flicked down at her sheet again. She was silent for a time, building herself up to asking something, and it took her longer than such a thing would have before. “...was she okay? When you saw her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hesitating, Chrystal refused to lie or soften any blows. Yang deserved better than that. They both...these sorts of talks between weren’t new. Nothing had changed in that. They were just sober for this one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. She was. Lots of guilt and self-hatred. But she was okay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nodding, Yang looked back down at her sheets, and otherwise didn’t respond.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Leaning down to kiss the top of Yang’s head again, Chrystal stepped away to head downstairs and join her friends. “I love you, Yang. Stay alive so I can see you again once things are back to normal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chrystal, things are never going to be back to normal.” Yang looked up at her dejectedly, almost scolding her until she saw that Chrystal knew that already, and had known it before she’d opened her own mouth. </span>
  <span>Instead the two of them merely shared a sad look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been Chrystal saying that she’d have every intention of coming back, that she wasn’t just </span>
  <em>
    <span>leaving.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a promise.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Rest up, dragon. I’ll see you later.” Chrystal gave her a small smile, and left her room, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...be safe, butterfly.” Yang whispered, feeling the deep fear in her chest that there was every chance she’d just seen one of her best friends for the last time. But at least this time there was a goodbye, and a reason, and a promise to come back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Outside her door, Chrystal closed her eyes and rested her back against the wood for a moment, before putting on her brave mask and making her way downstairs, giving a polite and thankful goodbye to Tai as she left with Shina and Kylar, putting her hands in her pockets and quietly listening as Shina and Kylar filled her in. Qrow Branwen had agreed to meet them down one of the nearby walking trails, since apparently Ruby and Yang weren’t in on the secret yet, which pissed Shina off a great deal. Tacita's scroll had been <em>barely</em> in range, so she was on her way as quickly as she could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But all of Chrystal's thoughts were with the girl she’d just left behind. There was every chance Chrystal might never make it home, but this time she got to tell the person she might never see again that she cared about them, and she got to say the goodbye just in case.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Glancing over her shoulder as the house vanished from view, her eyes were soft and sad, and she whispered another goodbye, before looking forward and not letting herself look back again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Through her window, Yang watched her go.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Evolution</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Having their talk with Qrow Branwen, despite Shina's and Kylar's attempts at diplomacy it's only Chrystal that catches the man's interest. With plans to leave in only two days, it's a rush to grab last minute supplies and prepare themselves internally to leave and join an invisible war. Meanwhile, they aren't the only ones rushing, as Delilah finds herself impatient to begin her true experiments and threaten the town of Ikaksi.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Trigger Warning: Body horror, animal death and mutilation.</p><p>There's a big Delilah segment. There's your trigger warning: Delilah.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re Team Sketch.”</p><p> </p><p>Regarding the four teenagers standing in front of him, Qrow raised an eyebrow as he sank down to sit on a tree stump, the five of them having moved far enough down one of the walking trails in the forest that there was little chance of them being overheard for what they were about to discuss. Qrow had been surprised that he’d apparently been sought out, but the look in the team leader’s eyes had him relent, at the very least out of curiosity.</p><p>If it hadn’t been Ozpin to bring them in on the secret, and Qrow knew that it wouldn’t have been, that meant it had been Tesse and Logan. And the two surviving members of Team BLAK had made it clear years ago that they were done with that business, so their reasons must have been important.</p><p>And there was only one that Qrow could think of.</p><p> </p><p>Narrowing his eyes in thought as he took a quick drink from his flask, Qrow was quiet for another few moments as he thought over it. He knew what their eventual mission was going to end up being, what Oz had planned for them, and while he hadn’t agreed outright he hadn’t protested against it much either. Rowena was a powerful maiden, but she had always been skittish and occasionally unreliable, so for her to go missing put up more signs of danger than any of them had liked considering.</p><p>And now with the Fall Maiden on the side of the enemy, and their Winter Maiden too old to fight and close to death, they needed Spring. Either Rowena, or in the worst case scenario of Rowena having died, they needed her replacement.</p><p>Ozpin had seen something in the four kids in front of him, but he’d never said exactly what. Not surprising, considering Ozpin always kept so much unspoken, to the point it had begun to damage everyone’s trust in him. Including James, and, to a far greater extent, Raven.</p><p> </p><p>At the thought of his sister, Qrow’s lips thinned. She was in Mistral, he knew that much, and if that’s where these four kids were going…<br/>The likelihood of encountering each other was low, but it was there all the same, and it wasn’t a comforting thought. The last thing they needed was someone with the temperament and worldview of Raven getting her hands on a Kamisari.</p><p>Raven was powerful, but she was also dangerously persuasive.</p><p> </p><p>“I take it from the looks in your eyes that you have questions.” He raised his eyebrows at them, sliding his flask back into his pocket and leaning forward.</p><p> </p><p>Shina nodded, his hands down by his sides but a degree of tension present in the rest of his posture. “We’ve decided to do what Ozpin wanted us to do. Kylar’s parents filled us in, but you know the more recent news that they don’t.”</p><p>“True, I imagine their intel is a fair few years behind, considering their retirement. Well if they’ve told you the basics, what do you want from <em> me? </em>”</p><p>“If we’re following a trail, we need to follow <em> tracks. </em>” Kylar spoke up, raising an eyebrow when Qrow’s eyes flicked to him. “And we don’t know the sort of ‘tracks’ that a Maiden leaves behind. What are we looking for?”</p><p>“If your parents tell it right, <em> you </em>fought a maiden at Beacon. Did her powers seem subtle or discrete to you?”</p><p> </p><p>Shaking his head, Kylar’s eyes flicked away as he thought about it. Massive power was hard to restrict with any degree of finesse, his own Semblance was proof of that when he went all out, as was Shina’s, but Cinder’s maiden powers had been in a whole other league. And that had been her at only a portion of the strength she had now.</p><p>If Rowena was a fully-powered Maiden, with experience using her powers, those sorts of abilities would leave marks and scars on the environment, and unique ones.</p><p>But it required finding sites where she’d used them in the first place. Which a Maiden in hiding would be unlikely to do.</p><p>“Cinder’s main element was fire, but apparently she can use ice as well.” Kylar crossed his arms in thought, frowning. “Are the powers of the Spring Maiden the same?”</p><p>“Similar. They’re not as attuned to fire, but their attunement to air and ice are stronger.” Sitting back as he regarded the Goroesi boy, Qrow suppressed a small smirk as he took in Kylar’s thinking face, seeing a lot of his father in him. “But the main element of the Spring Maiden is lightning. Each maiden can use any element, but they can use some easier than others. For Spring, lightning is normally their first choice.”</p><p>Blinking at the information, Kylar straightened up slightly. Lightning was something he understood, and would be far easier for him to look for and find over the other elements, so that was <em> something </em>at least.</p><p>“Look, you kids don’t know what you’re up against, and what you’re going after. Even if you find her, what will you do?” Raising his eyebrows as he posed the question, he watched as Kylar and Tacita glanced at each other, meanwhile Chrystal looked to Shina and Shina didn’t even flinch.</p><p>“We’ll protect her.”</p><p>“What protection are you sure you can give a Maiden, kid? You just met the sort of forces that will be coming for her. You four are tough, I get it, I got the sales pitch.” Qrow’s eyes turned slightly sympathetic but also stern at the same time. “But killing a lot of Grimm isn’t all it takes to be ready for this sort of fight.”</p><p>“That’s not <em> all </em>we’ve done, we’ve-” Chrystal interjected with an insulted and defensive look on her face, but Qrow cut her off with a raised hand and an even stricter and stronger look.</p><p>“I was at Beacon too during the battle, kid. I know what you went through. You’re veterans of <em> one </em> battle, which we <em> lost </em> , and <em> all four of you </em> were knocked out of the fight before it was over. Are you sure about entering a life where that level of danger could happen over and over again?”</p><p>“You trying to convince us to change our minds and sit out of what's coming?” Tacita’s voice was well-controlled, yet there was a genuine curiosity behind it. But Qrow got the feeling the curiosity wasn’t about the answer, it was about <em> him. </em></p><p>“I’m suggesting the four of you take a bit longer to think about what you’re agreeing to. None of you are even back to full strength yet.”</p><p>“Once things start properly, and they will, we won’t have a choice but to live that way anyway. We’re young, but we’re not stupid, we know that it’s coming either way.” Shina drummed the fingers of his right hand on his leg and Qrow gave him his full attention or a few moments, scrutinising him and sizing him up.</p><p>“You might not be stupid, but that doesn’t mean you’re not reckless.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ozpin must have seen something in us for him to think we could do this.” Shina narrowed his eyes. It was a weak point of argument, but it was mostly to see how Qrow would react.</p><p>“<em> After </em>you graduated and grew up a bit, that part’s important.” Qrow took out his flask again and took a sip.</p><p>“We don’t have time for that, anymore. And with Ozpin and the Academy gone, we don’t even have the opportunity. We’re all you’ve got, now.” Shina gestured to the others, who had been watching the exchange quietly. “And without us, you won’t even have the Spring Maiden. Maybe you don’t need <em> us </em> , but you need <em> her </em>, and we can find her.”</p><p>“You can <em> try, </em>to find her.” Qrow stressed, pointing to Shina to press in the point. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t go, I know you’re just going to go do it anyway no matter what I say, I’m just suggesting you think a bit harder about this choice. This war doesn’t just ‘end’. You leave, you’re not coming back. Not properly.”</p><p>“My parents did, and now...the next generation is ready. Or at least willing.” Kylar glanced between Qrow and Shina, trying to get a read on his team leader’s face, but his eyes stayed on Qrow when the man spoke up.</p><p>“Your parents went through something you can’t imagine. If they haven’t told, I won’t say, but they <em> earned </em>their retirement. I was at their teammates' funerals, I saw what they buried.” At that memory, Qrow took a far deeper drink and looked down, shaking his head as the memories from some of those worst days returned. “You don’t want this. But I can’t stop you.”</p><p> </p><p>Giving a long sigh, Qrow pushed himself to his feet and slid his flask away before putting his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Once you’re on mainland Sanus, head to the far eastern peninsula and it should be easy enough to catch a ship to Mistral. It’s a couple of weeks walk, but the terrain isn’t so bad. But once you’re on Anima, then you’re walking through forest, and not the pleasant kind around here on Patch or like the Emerald Forest back in Vale. It’s tough terrain, and the Grimm of Anima are able to spawn in massive numbers since it’s so hard to find them, not to mention bandits. Ywitawa is about four weeks journey from the coast, but there are plenty of towns along the way for supplies.”</p><p>Sighing in resignation, Qrow looked at each of them in turn and shook his head in a degree of resigned concern. “Get across Sanus and cross the sea to Anima before the frost of winter starts to set in, otherwise you’ll be waiting it out for a couple of months. That means you’ve got to leave as soon as possible, or you’ll have to wait.”</p><p>“And once we find her? What did Ozpin have in mind for her?” Shina sighed, putting his own hands into his pockets. Qrow chuckled and shook his head.</p><p>“Not a clue, kid. We were all kept in the dark. My guess? Getting her to head to Haven to protect the relic.”</p><p> </p><p>Noticing quietly as the four teenagers all gave each other glances, he could see that their own plans for what to do once they found the Maiden were undecided and was a matter yet to be settled, and he chuckled internally. It was always the same, no matter the team or the time. Ozpin had never minded when the teams helping him had their own opinions about what to do and what might be the best path ahead, in fact he had encouraged it as long as he was on the same page as they were, but those differences in opinions led to fractures, which led to mistakes.</p><p>Which led to…</p><p>Too many dead.</p><p> </p><p>“You kids are looking at a two and a half month journey before you get to Ywitawa and can even <em> begin </em>to search.”</p><p>His interruption caused the four to look back to him again, and he smirked when the Chrystal girl shrugged and crossed her arms.</p><p>“So? Like you said, this war isn’t just going to ‘end’, I think we’ve got the free time.”</p><p>Chuckling, he shrugged to concede the point. “Anything else?”</p><p>“Any contacts in the area you can think of that might be a help, would be nice?” Chrystal asked with an intrigued look, and he found himself narrowing his eyes at her in curiosity for a few moments before he nodded.</p><p>“Sure. I’ve got a few friends in Haven itself, but I do also know the towns near Ywitawa. I can give you some names. Not exactly fighting allies, but they know the area and might know the right rumors. I’ll write up a list, swing by the house and grab it before you leave for Vale.”</p><p>She nodded, and when no more questions came Qrow figured the conversation was done and gave them all a casual nod as he went to walk off, hands in his pockets.</p><p>“You don’t know what it is you’re getting into, kids. But, I don’t think any of us did. Think over it some more. It’s easy to <em> say </em>you’re willing to die for something. The actual dying part is pretty easy too. It’s the part in the middle that you haven't considered the weight of. The commitment.”</p><p>“Thanks for the advice. But we have to do this.” Shina gave him a thankful look, and Qrow sighed.</p><p>“I know. That’s always the case.” Qrow thought for a few more moments before glancing around at the four of them. “Rowena’s a bit of a nervous type, shy and slow to trust. And she was never much of a fighter. What I’m saying is don’t put all your bets on finding <em>Rowena, </em>as much as you should focus on finding <em>The</em> <em>Spring Maiden.</em>”</p><p>“You think she might be dead?” Shina frowned.</p><p>“I’m thinking that it’s foolish to assume either one is more likely than the other. All bets are off about who lives and dies.” Qrow gave a dejected look and shrug before continuing on his way. “You’ve got to leave before the first sign of snow if you don’t want to be locked in by the frost. That’s how quickly you’ve got to decide.”</p><p> </p><p>Waving a hand over his shoulder, Qrow vanished back up the trail and out of sight, and the four members of SKTC turned to look at each other, all with the same expression on their faces.</p><p>“I mean, we’re not changing our mind, right?” Kylar raised his eyebrows, and grinned when everyone shook their heads with various degrees of casual dismissal.</p><p>Chrystal’s nose was scrunched up in disinterest at Qrow’s prodding as she shook her head. “Nope, I’m healed enough that I can do the rest of my recovery on the road.”</p><p>“Same.” Tacita nodded with a shrug, crossing her arms, and Kylar shrugged as well in agreement about his own condition.</p><p>Hesitating for a few moments as he thought over his own injuries, some of which were still paining him, Shina took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For the most part he was back to full form, but there were still some muscles that protested. As long as he kept moving and prevented them from weakening, they’d recover in no time, so frankly leaving for the trip instead of potentially sitting around the estate for two months might <em> help </em>his recovery.</p><p>So he nodded as well, his hands still in his pockets.<br/>“Yeah I’m good. So how soon?”</p><p>“We have until the first snowfall, and the weather’s already getting cold and wet.” Tacita pointedly glanced up at where the one sunny sky was starting to cloud over. “We have maybe a week to start moving. Maybe two if we’re lucky.”</p><p>“So a week, then.” Chrystal smirked, before shrugging. “Well I don’t exactly want to leave like, <em> tomorrow. </em> We have supplies to buy, especially if we’re travelling through frost on foot.”</p><p>“Agreed. We can do that tomorrow. And we’ll do our proper planning tonight.” Tacita agreed with a glance at the other girl.</p><p> </p><p>Leaving just Kylar to offer an opinion, and the boy raised his eyebrows. It was going to be a fun fun <em> fun </em>conversation to have with his parents, no matter how early it was they decided to leave, so it really didn’t matter just how early it was. They would need supplies, and quite a few of them as well. That would be tomorrow. But after that, there was no point putting it off. The sooner the better.</p><p>“Two days?”</p><p>Each of them glancing around at each other, they all either nodded in agreement or their eyes said it for them.</p><p> </p><p>So it was agreed.</p><p>In two days, they left for war.</p><p>And each of them had to accept they might never come back.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Late the next afternoon, with shopping done and the plan for their trip in place, Chrystal made her way to Ruby and Yang’s place yet again to grab the list from Qrow. Pale and drained, she hadn’t slept well the previous night, for some reason the fact she was back in a comfortable bed in a quiet room hadn’t been in her favour. She’d tossed and turned, her ears straining for any noise, and wrapped in warm blankets on a soft mattress had made her feel trapped.</p><p>Eventually she’d given up and gone to Kylar’s workshop to maintain her weapons and get them back into good condition after a week in the ruins, only to find Kylar there himself finishing up the touches on the rebuilt Myriadisca, also having trouble sleeping. They’d shared an understanding look and gotten to work in silence, both of them knowing any conversation about it would be pointless. While the two of them had always gotten along, they didn’t have much in common or ever much to talk about.</p><p>But apart from Tacita, Chrystal was the one who Kylar’s semblance could buff the best in combat, so they’d trained together on many occasions, resulting in a silent understanding of how the other one thought.</p><p>So they’d worked quietly, Kylar using the time and work in order to think, meanwhile Chrystal did it so that she could <em> stop </em>thinking, taking extra time when it came to taking apart and servicing her guns and spending more effort than was necessary on her blades. But her armour had definitely needed the repairs, and the tools and materials in Kylar’s workshop were far superior to what she’d been forced to use at night during her time in the ruins, so she undid a lot of her basic stitches and repairs in order to do them properly with machinery.</p><p>It all made it clear to her just how much damage her gear had sustained during the week, and while she still had plenty of ammo left she still noticed the dent in her supply, so she’d made sure to stock back up the next day when they’d gone shopping, along with grabbing clothes and other basic camping gear that would suffice for travelling through the winter. They would each be carrying a load heavier than they were used to, lamenting the loss of Shina’s quadbike, but the detour to the ruins of Vale to attempt to find it would eat up too much time, and the chances it was intact were tiny.</p><p>But still, it was a loss and meant they couldn’t carry as many supplies as they wanted to. They just had to hope that the towns along the way would have enough to resupply them as they went, but with communications down it was safe to assume that a lot of trade between the smaller towns had stopped, so it wasn’t always going to be a safe bet.</p><p>They’d be travelling rough, but Chrystal didn’t find herself too worried. If anything, it’d feel nice to get back out into the trees and away from civilisation.</p><p> </p><p>Unlike the previous day, the sun was hiding away behind a thick layer of clouds that threatened yet another rainstorm, and it was only going to be a matter of time until the increasingly frequent rains began to turn to snow, and the moment the first snowfall hit they’d be too late to leave. By the time it was dawn tomorrow, they’d be on the Goroesi jet heading for the mainland, and they’d be on their way.</p><p>It would take just over a month to cross Sanus. That part of the trip was going to be relatively easy, the four of them were familiar with the sort of terrain they’d be dealing with, and they knew the varieties of Grimm that were found on the continent and had more experience with them than a lot of other teams from Beacon had ever racked up.</p><p>Their determination to go on as many missions as possible was going to pay off, and save their lives.</p><p>Hopefully.</p><p>...hopefully...</p><p> </p><p>Sighing as her brain threatened to go down that dangerous road, her mind thinking of flashes of blood and bodies laying in the streets of the city. Of Reika’s scared eyes and collapsed buildings and the look on Neo’s face when they saw Roman’s hat. The scent of the burning ruins and the smirk on Adam’s face. Shaking her head to dismiss it all away, she put her hands in the pockets of her repaired jacket and sped up in her walking, the house that was her destination coming into view after only another couple minutes of walking as briskly as possible in the hope of distracting her mind with the feel of the ground beneath her feet.</p><p>As it came into view, her shoulders felt a strange weight settle onto them as she walked up to the front door and knocked, not as firmly as Shina would have, and immediately put her hand back into her pocket as she waited. Hearing a few seconds of quiet conversation happening inside, Tai’s voice didn’t sound happy but she could tell that the frustration and disappointment wasn’t directed at her, so when the door opened and Tai greeted her with a small smile, she smiled back and stepped inside when he gestured to invite her in.</p><p> </p><p>Once the door was closed behind them, his expression faded and went concerned as he spoke to her. “The four of you don’t have to do this, not right away at the very least.”</p><p>“...it feels like we do, sir.” Chrystal sighed, shaking her head in disagreement, and he must have seen something in her eyes that had him hesitate.</p><p>“You’ve been through a lot in the past week, Chrystal. You don’t have to be so quick to throw yourself back into danger again. Rest, recover…”</p><p>“I can’t. There’s no time for that. We both know that, sir.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking into her eyes for a few moments, Tai surrendered and quietly guided her into the living room where Qrow was already waiting for her, a look on his face showing that it had been him that Tai was disagreeing with and likely <em> arguing </em>with, and she didn’t have to be a genius to easily figure out what they were arguing about.</p><p>“Either the four of you brainstormed the entire night, or you refused to change your minds at all.” Qrow chuckled, before sharing a guarded and dark look with Tai and gesturing with his head for Chrystal to walk with him. </p><p>She gave Tai a polite and thankful smile, and wordlessly followed the other man out into the backyard, a dozen or so paces away from the house. Leaning against the largest tree, he crossed his arms and slightly frowned at her, giving her a once-over, and his eyes especially went to her jacket and briefly went far away, humming in almost nostalgic amusement quietly for a moment.</p><p>“I know a Huntress that wears similar pads to that. Though hers are red.”</p><p>“Rich colours aren’t my style.” Chrystal crossed her arms in confusion at the topic, and at his demeanour. “I’ve worn brown and grey all my life.”</p><p>“Blending in with the environment, right?”</p><p>“...yeah.” Chrystal’s eyes narrowed and she silently ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, the way Qrow was looking at her making her feel as if she was being summed up.</p><p>“That sort of visual camouflage doesn’t work against Grimm, really. Works against people a treat, though.”</p><p>“Your point?”</p><p>Silent for a few moments as he looked at her, Qrow shook his head to dismiss the topic and back off. “No real point made. Just bet it came in handy in Beacon the past week.”</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal didn’t reply, but her features went guarded and he <em> felt </em> her defenses go up as he touched a weak spot, and to her credit her posture itself didn’t change, still coming across as casual and relaxed. The problem was she broadcast everything through her eyes, and they’d gone from nervous to suspicious to downright defensive with every sentence he’d said.<br/>Poking around in Vale for a few days when he’d first arrived back in town, particularly in the less reputable parts of the city, he’d heard basic word about the girl. Nothing nefarious, she was just popular, but when you’re popular in certain circles they tend to have their own reasons as to why they like you, what they see in you. But she’d never done any of that sort of work, apparently.</p><p>Yet she’d seemed like the type, up until…</p><p>Well, now she was different. And it wasn’t just the scars.<br/>Qrow knew that look in a person’s eyes, when they’d killed people they hadn’t wanted to kill. He’d known it ever since he was a kid with the tribe back home, what was a long time ago and very far away. What concerned him, though, was how well she seemed to be carrying the weight already.</p><p>But if the bags under her eyes were any indication, she was still either having the nightmares or hadn’t managed to sleep yet at all.</p><p> </p><p>“How you holding up, kid?”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning and her crossed arms tightening slightly, tapping her fingers on the inside of her left bicep, Chrystal tilted her head and raised her eyebrows for a moment dismissively.</p><p>“I’m alright. Still a bit sore, but it’s fading.”</p><p>“Heh, so they’ve all taken their turns asking you.” Qrow chuckled unsurprised, rolling his eyes in sympathy. “Don’t take it to heart, kid. They’re not pitying you. They mean well.”</p><p>Silent for a few moments as she took her own turn to scrutinise him in return, Chrystal sucked on the inside of her cheek as her defenses riled up, but the look in the man’s eyes was sympathetic yet not in the way everyone else had been looking at her, even Shina. There was a weight to Qrow’s sympathy, a dark grey mass inside of his eyes and on his shoulders that had her relax slightly and something inside of her steeled-up mind unclench.</p><p>“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.” Despite the fact she was relaxing, she kept her voice guarded, but it didn’t seem to bother him.</p><p>“Yeah, well, they don’t know how it feels. So they don’t know <em> how </em>to ask. They’re lucky for that, I guess. You haven’t slept yet, right? Since getting back.”</p><p>“Got a bit of rest on the jet on the way home.”</p><p>“Passing out, and sleeping, are different things.” Qrow chuckled, and she smirked back. Shrugging, she shook her head.</p><p>“Then no. I close my eyes and…”</p><p>“Yeah. That goes away, how fast it does depends on who you are.”</p><p> </p><p>After a moment, she nodded in understanding. It wasn’t a comforting thought, she was still so tired that she thought she’d fall apart, but exhaustion would drive her to rest eventually, and when it did if she was tired enough she wouldn’t have any nightmares, or see anything. But while seeing flashes was awful, what was always the worst was her sense of smell. Scents returned to her and tortured her easier than sights and sounds did, ever since the fire. If she let her mind wander, the scent of blood seemed to enter her head, and she hated it.</p><p>The longest bath of her life the previous night hadn’t felt like it had removed all the traces that were on her, no matter how much she had scrubbed seemingly an entire layer of skin from herself in such a manic fervor she’d curled up. It was easy to keep those moments hidden from the others, she’d been doing it all of her life, but they were hitting her whenever they got the chance.</p><p>For some reason she’d been able to have them around Neo, but things had been different with...that girl, the one she’d let live, and then lied to her team about. Now sometimes she closed her eyes and saw her face, either bloodied and wild from a fight or tightened up and sweating from...their particular way of coping and hating themselves.</p><p> </p><p>Seeming to pick up on her mood, and sharing it inside of himself a little bit, Qrow pulled his flask from his pocket and took a gulp before tossing it to her, and she caught it easily, barely even hesitating before taking a gulp as well and tossing it back, finally making her way over to join him, but not closing the distance entirely. Again, he didn’t seem to take it personally, simply putting his flask away and crossing his own arms relaxedly.</p><p>“You’ve been thinking about how much easier it’s going to be once you’re on the road. Once you’re away from everyone and travelling and exhausting yourself every day.” His voice was tired and sympathetic again, and she froze rigid at being accurately predicted and called out, but he simply shook his head. “It won’t be any easier. You’ll sleep better, but you’ll just have nightmares. Time is the only thing that’ll make it easier.”</p><p>“You’re still trying to talk us out of it? If so, you picked the wrong one.” She rolled her eyes, before frowning when he shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>Truth be told, Qrow was glad it was her that had swung by, and that she’d come by alone. Ever since he’d seen her yesterday, and then later heard from Tai that she’d somehow managed to spend an hour with Yang while Yang hadn’t accepted company from <em> anyone </em> since she’d woken up and felt the weight of her own situation, Qrow had found Chrystal lingering on his mind in a way that had driven him back to the bar late the previous evening, unknowingly around the same time Chrystal had swung out of bed to head to the workshop.<br/>A week in the sort of hell he knew Beacon to currently be, feeling alone and abandoned and having to kill just to get out, was something he was willing to bet no-one would be truly able to understand, especially how it would affect her as a teenager. And Chrystal was damaged, even before those particular wounds. Two seemingly different trains of thought and feeling inside her, each one aware of the other and neither of them sure which one of them was the real one and which one was the weakness.</p><p>He’d seen it before. In plenty of Huntsmen and soldiers.</p><p>And, if <em> he </em>stayed sober for too long, he felt it inside himself as well. The drink kept the two parts of himself, his real self and the damage, murkily morphed into one. And he was willing to bet the girl had her own vices and coping mechanisms.</p><p>Otherwise, if the weight he saw in her was accurate, she would have killed herself a long time ago.</p><p> </p><p>Tesse Goroesi had once said to him <em> ‘We do what we can to survive what we cannot escape.’, </em>when she’d found him collapsed outside of a bar early in their mutual times let in on Ozpin’s secrets and he hadn’t been sure how to handle it.</p><p>Now he looked across at a girl far too young, not even as old as Team BLAK had been and <em> certainly </em> not as old as STRQ had been when they’d started their fights, and he could see her handling it with the composure of someone practiced at handling similar weights, yet lighter weights.<br/>It was too damn similar to look at, and he wasn’t sure whether it scared him, hurt him, or simply made him very tired. This was one problem that Ozpin wouldn’t have been able to help with if he had still been around to do so.</p><p>Qrow had never really been a hugger, and a hug was the last thing someone like himself and Chrystal needed when things started to get heavier.</p><p>“Look…” Qrow sighed, giving her a heavy look. “You’re going to be taking more lives before this is done. All four of you. And I’ll be blunt; <em>you’re</em> going to handle it better than the others. Get used to that idea, and <em> fast. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Looking at him silently for a few moments with unblinking eyes and an unreadable expression, Chrystal slowly uncrossed her arms and let them hang by her sides for a few moments, looking away in thought before she simply held out her hand, and he silently tossed her his flask for her to take another gulp and toss it back.</p><p>“Keep it inside as much as you want, kid. Bottle it up, numb it with whatever your drug of choice is whether it’s literal or...anything else, mask it, whatever. But it’s going to change you.”</p><p>“What’s your point?” Chrystal’s voice cut him off, and it was suddenly defensive and laced with sharp edges as she put her hands into her pockets so she could clench her fists without him seeing, her eyes slightly sharp.</p><p>“Cool the jets, you need to hear this.” Qrow stood up from the tree and took a few steps over to her, enough of them that the height difference came into place and she was forced to tilt her head up slightly to meet his stare. “The other three? They’ll handle it in their own way. The Goroesi will handle it like his parents, and comfort himself by patting himself on the back, which isn’t a half-bad way to do it.. The archer? She seems the therapy type, even if she does it herself. And the Kamisari boy will handle it like his dad.”</p><p>“Wait, you know his-” Chrystal blinked, but he cut her off as if she wasn’t talking.</p><p>“But <em> you </em>are going to come back from this different in a way they won’t relate to. Want to know why?”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her mouth at the sharp look in his eyes and the cutting tone in his voice, she could see in his face that for the first time in the conversation that he was letting a bit of his own emotions slip through. So she silenced herself and didn’t respond, waiting.</p><p>“You’ll be different because you’ll come back wishing that you hadn't made it. You already do, just from the past week, and the others are typical fools for not seeing it.”</p><p> </p><p>Sucking in a breath of air and her eyes going wide, the defensiveness around herself shattered and her eyes went vulnerable as she stared up into his, a shiver of ice cold fear going over her skin and into herself at the way his eyes were staring into her. With her mouth going dry from her rapid breathing, she opened and closed it slightly a few times as if wanting to respond, but nothing came out. Eventually a small miniscule sound came out barely above a whispered squeak, and she looked away, finally managing to blink and close her eyes as her hands left her pockets to hang by her sides again, shaking slightly.</p><p>But Qrow simply kept staring at her, his lips thinning and his expression softening before he spoke again, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a folded up piece of paper, before reaching it over and sliding it into her jacket pocket while she looked away in rapidfire thought.</p><p>“Here, just like you asked for.” Qrow hesitated for a moment before putting his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him. “They’ll never understand it, but they’ll try to. Surviving it is up to you, kid. Be ready to change, and not in ways the others might want you to. But sometimes you’re not going to have a choice. It’ll be either adapt, or die. And if you die, they’ll die. You get me?”</p><p>Nodding numbly and sadly in understanding, not particularly enjoying being flayed open, and not handling it particularly well, Chrystal looked up at him with an understanding but heavy look, just like his. “I’ll get it done.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know.” Qrow sighed, as if having expected those exact words, and he stepped past her towards the house. “I bet you kids are leaving soon, so best get ready for that.”</p><p> </p><p>Following after him towards the back door again, she stopped next to him when he paused and glanced at her.</p><p>“And kid?”</p><p>“...what?”</p><p>“The scar doesn’t look that bad, you know. You’re still pretty, just also distinguished now.” He chuckled, before opening the door and stepping inside, leaving it open behind him for her to follow him in silently, closing the door behind herself.</p><p> </p><p>As they walked through the kitchen, Tai eyed Qrow silently with a suspicious and disapproving glance, having watched the conversation through the kitchen window. He hadn’t been able to hear any of the words, but the body language had been enough to give him slight warning signs. Chrystal may be a tough kid, but she was still just a kid, as far as his opinion was concerned. But he also couldn’t refute it when Qrow had pointed out just what had happened, and just who she reminded him of.</p><p>Each of the four of them carried a legacy.</p><p>They might not understand it or even know it, but that Qrow and Tai recognised all too well, and Qrow was sure Logan and Tesse saw the same things.</p><p>But there was no stopping the team now.</p><p>So Tai simply gave Chrystal a forced smile as he bid her goodbye and she smiled back and said the same, both of them knowing what she was doing but avoiding even bringing it up. It had been pretty clear to Tai that she wasn’t going to listen to him, but she clearly listened to Qrow.<br/>And that set off alarms all on its own.</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal paused as she passed by the bottom of the stairs, and she glanced up at them with a sad but determined look on her face, veering off from where Qrow was leading her to the front door and instead heading upstairs to fulfil her promises and say goodbye to her friends.</p><p>The two men watched her go and shared a look.</p><p>She was a good kid.</p><p>But if she couldn’t handle the weight, she might not be a good kid for much longer.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The small town of Ikaksi was quiet and peaceful as the moon rose high into the sky close to midnight, with no movement in the square apart from the occasional passing by one of the half a dozen town guards, each of them volunteers and poorly trained, more like a neighborhood watch than a proper guard unit. Between their lack of discipline and the exhaustion brought on by the late hour, none of them noticed the low flickering light coming from inside one of the houses on the outskirts of town, where they didn’t even bother to patrol since the houses there were mostly abandoned.</p><p> </p><p>Working by lantern, Delilah frowned to herself pensively as she worked through the body she was improving, her hands moving over bones to strengthen them and muscles to unnaturally expand them, in the process of creating one of her larger children. The current body she was fixing up was a rather pretty woman, mid-twenties, and she had been strong and in excellent shape, making her a perfect candidate.</p><p>Most of her children continued to prowl the forest to gather parts for her, but the two of her larger and stronger children she’d been able to create stood in the room as still as statues, waiting for their mother to ask something of them. And while she certainly had plans, she still had to take them slowly. The people of Ikaksi were starting to notice absences, and with any luck they’d be sending for a Huntsman soon.</p><p> </p><p>Delilah needed to have at least one more strong child by then, if she was going to capture them and harvest them properly. By far her most ambitious plan rested on harvesting more of the same sections of brain she’d been collecting throughout the battle of Beacon. While she had well over a dozen, she’d only made sure to collect the strongest ones, and they were waiting for her back in Salem’s castle.</p><p>She was hardly going to use her most valuable pieces as part of the initial experiments, when there was risk of them being destroyed and wasted.</p><p> </p><p>It was going to be slow and ugly work, it always was, she still remembered when she had initially began the experiments of trying to create her children, almost a year ago.</p><p> </p><p>“...people think change is straightforward and graceful.” She put down the femur in her hands and placed her hands on either side of the table, resting for a moment as she spoke aloud in thought. “We look back at living things and see where they started and where they are now, how they changed and evolved, and most people assume it was a straight line.”</p><p>Shaking her head and tilting it in thought, her voice grew more pensive. “Well, it’s more that they don’t put enough thought into it to consider otherwise. Why would they? Evolution is on the periphery. Change is passive, so not worth watching. But they’re wrong.”</p><p>Picking up the femur again, she continued to run her aura along it to strengthen it, infusing the powerful cells of living flesh with black flesh in order to add the power of darkness to it, the hybrid of the two forms of life resulting in something more powerful and versatile than either of them on their own. The bone in her hand, once smooth and white, was now jagged and riddled with black tendrils and ridges. She held it up and showed it off to prove her point.</p><p>“Evolution is an ugly, ugly thing. For every animal now alive, a thousand abhorrent failures were attempted until one of them was good enough and stuck around. I’ve touched the flesh of dogs, I’ve <em> felt </em>the different combinations that were tried and failed until what we know to be a 'dog' came to exist. A thousand failures, eventually one stuck around. It’s disgusting, by our ignorant human perceptions.”</p><p> </p><p>Inserting the strengthened and improved femur back into the body, she used her Semblance to click everything back together and reattach the nerves and muscles, which she had already infused with dust and black flesh to grow and sustain them, but instead of bulging grotesquely like they did in her original attempts at her stronger children they were instead more reasonable and natural looking, as she was able to use black blood instead of copious amounts of earth dust to do the job.</p><p>With every attempt, her stronger children grew slightly more...lifelike, in a way. More humanoid, which wasn’t her end goal but there was an elegance and familiarity to the form that she found pleasing, which she knew was just her still human instincts. But until she was able to get away with creating numbers of more unnatural looking creatures, she couldn’t start experimenting with animals yet.</p><p>But she had a few designs in mind.</p><p>Closing up the leg, she spoke up again.</p><p> </p><p>“People reject ‘ugly’, if it’s a living thing. They think change, growth...they think it’s graceful, and sacred. Baby to child to teenager to adult, a sacred and precious thing that time allows. Puppy to dog, a cute growth of a cute companion. Egg, smooth and white, to baby chick, to pretty bird.”</p><p>Shaking her head in frustrated disbelief at their willful ignorance, she looked over her shoulder at the young girl in chains against the wall. She’d been a screamer and a beggar, so Delilah had been forced to remove her mouth entirely, making the girl’s face look deformed and unnatural. Chained to the wall, the girl’s eyes were wide and her muscles exhausted from hours of struggling that she had given up on, especially with the two lumbering horrors right near her.</p><p> </p><p>Simply gorgeous red hair, beautiful pale skin, shimmering blue eyes, beautiful lips and teeth that Delilah had made sure to memorise how to regrow, and a body to die for that would have made Cypher drool, she was easily the most beautiful person in the town. Of <em> course </em>Delilah had grabbed her, but she wasn’t going to use her straight away. She had grander plans in mind for her.</p><p>But first...she had to make the girl <em> understand. </em></p><p>If she could. So she fixed the girl with as convincing a look as she could.</p><p> </p><p>“But think of the butterfly. They’re beautiful. Everything about a butterfly is elegant, vibrant, and unfailingly pretty to watch. They start off as caterpillars, yes?” Delilah asked, before glaring until the terrified girl nodded in understanding. Smiling, pleased, she continued. “And caterpillars are often very cute as well. I like them a lot. For the first stage of a creature, they’re truly capable little insects.”</p><p>Going back to her work as she spoke, she opened up the other leg and began the same process of going bone by bone, starting at the toes and working her way up, making sure to strengthen every single one. While she could do it all at once simply by placing a hand on the chest and washing black blood through the flesh, this was more intimate and made sure every bone was done perfectly.<br/>And if she did it in front of the girl, maybe it would help Delilah get her point across. Would help the girl understand.</p><p>“And think of the pupa. While they’re not always <em> beautiful, </em> sometimes they are. Shiny, glossy, like flower buds on the branch.” Delilah smiled, looking down at the child beneath her and gesturing as if to prove a point. “The middle stage. But...think of what’s happening <em> inside </em> the pupa.” She chuckled. “Not so pretty. The once pretty caterpillar turns into <em> mush </em>. It liquifies as it reconstructs itself.”</p><p>She pointedly gestured to the body on the table as she made eye contact with the girl, and then held up the bone in her hand to evolve it, making sure to do it slowly so that the girl could see every bit of it change. The girl went to throw up, her eyes wide in horror as she watched her big sister’s body be defiled, but without a mouth nothing came out.</p><p>“Exactly. Not so pretty. But, that’s evolution. And it’s evolution that nature decided was the most effective way to go, for the caterpillar and the butterfly.” Delilah smiled as the point was driven home, going back to her work. The body in front of her was going to take a while, if she wanted to make it powerful but also keep it as humanoid as possible. </p><p> </p><p>Of course she was going to replace the teeth with fangs, and the nails with claws, as per usual. But she wasn’t just making another strong child, this was an experiment. And she was waiting on a very specific collection of parts that she could feel were on their way back to her, having been collected by a couple of her faster children whose legs had taken to the evolution easier than the others for reasons she still didn’t quite understand.</p><p>Random chance, perhaps? Evolution did like playing games, even if under her direct control.</p><p>With every child, she had to improve her techniques and find out more that she could attempt. And while clearly she could make powerful children that were a match for any Huntsmen, or even multiple at once, that wasn’t even close to being a finished design.</p><p>But for the grander and more elaborate attempts, she needed more bodies and parts.</p><p>Which meant taking over the town and harvesting.</p><p> </p><p>But that would require far more children. Including a few special ones. A design she hadn’t attempted before and wasn’t entirely sure she would get right, like the one in front of her.<br/>For a first attempt at a new generation, it wasn’t going to be easy or pretty, and maybe even not that effective. But it was worth trying.</p><p>Always. Even failures taught her new things.</p><p>Just like with evolution.</p><p>It was how she knew that’s what she was doing.</p><p>She was evolving them.</p><p> </p><p>“Meanwhile, Grimm don’t evolve at all. Not naturally.” Delilah pondered out loud, glancing over to the Seer in the corner which was currently dormant, before looking over at the girl. “They’re created, practically manufactured, on the whim of the influence and design of their current creator.”</p><p>The idea being just enough to penetrate through her fear, the captured girl blinked and briefly frowned, and Delilah nodded convincingly.</p><p>“It’s true. While the original Grimm have never changed form, merely continuing to spawn that way, the pits of darkness obey the will of their current queen. She can directly control their evolution with little effort.”</p><p> </p><p>Raising her hand, she willed some black flesh to the surface and formed a small beowulf skull in her hands, before squashing it in her fist and allowing black blood to drip onto the floor, the thick liquid hissing as it turned back to dust. “It’s magnificent. Meanwhile I’ve always been able to control <em> living </em> flesh. It’s a rare kind of Semblance. But it’s helped me <em> understand </em>what’s happening.”</p><p>Finishing up with the girl’s leg, she closed the flesh up and continued moving up the body, rolling the girl over to gain easier access to her spine and lower bones without having to squish through as much flesh, though she <em> did </em>have to deal with that at some point. While she did appreciate how pretty the body she was evolving was, though not as pretty as her sister of course, she always found it frustrating to deal with curves. They made it annoying to get to the muscles and nerves, but it couldn’t be helped.</p><p>Well, it <em> could, </em>in fact it would be easy, but she wanted to retain the humanoid form as much as possible for this one, meanwhile she’d easily removed such obstructions in her children before, even in the male bodies she’d fixed up.</p><p> </p><p>The girl in the corner tried to scream without a mouth again as Delilah began to remove her sister’s spine to get to the hips and tailbone easier, and Delilah rolled her eyes and gave her an exasperated and scolding look.</p><p>“Look, I’m trying to <em> help </em>you by teaching. And she was miserable when alive in her original form, I could feel the hormone imbalance in her brain when I first checked her over. Sometimes the original creature needs to die in order for the new to emerge. I’m helping her. This is the pupa stage, to return to the earlier comparison. I’m breaking her to evolve her.”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning as she went back to her work, she narrowed her eyes. “Where was I...oh! Of course, hybridisation. The reason Salem, that’s the current Grimm creator by the way, took me in is because I can do what she can’t; I can interact with and evolve living flesh like she can with black flesh. The Grimm may be her domain, but living flesh is mine. I can evolve you all, I can hurry along what nature seems to be failing to do.”</p><p>Gesturing in frustration as she continued, Delilah turned away from the body to face the girl entirely, crossing her arms and leaning back against the table. “Humanity hasn’t evolved. Ever. It’s been the same since the very beginning, I can feel it in the cells. It’s...disgusting, that we’re incapable of improvement. But…”</p><p> </p><p>With a thought, one of the larger children made his way over to her and knelt down so that she could reach his face easily, and she gave him a gentle smile as she ran her fingers down his cheek and cupped his jaw with her fingertips, looking over at the girl.</p><p>“But now I’m here. I can finally get us <em> right. </em>” She smiled before kissing her child on the forehead and letting him stand to return to his original place. “Controlling just living flesh, I was limited by the frustrating boundaries put in place by it. But I’ve been given the ability to control black flesh as well, and by infusing the two together I can evolve people into something stronger than human and grimm combined.”</p><p>Going back to her work silently, she let the girl in the corner stew over what she had said and showed her, knowing that most of it would be rejected out of the girl’s horror and fear. It wouldn’t surprise her, but what was important was that her words would stick into the girl’s mind, would linger in the back and repeat themselves in small whispers, and when the girl fell asleep she would have nightmares about what she was seeing, and Delilah’s words would be there in her dreams too.</p><p> </p><p>The work was slow, especially the numerous small bones in the girl’s hands and fingers, but eventually she got to the girl’s head and opened her jaw, unhinging it entirely so she could get to the inner network of nerves and tendons.</p><p>Opening up what she needed to, it was time for the first major test in her experiment, and she walked over to a closed bucket she was keeping in a corner of the room that she hadn’t bothered to use anything from yet.</p><p>Reaching in, she grabbed one of the large snakes that her children had captured and ignored it when it immediately bit her, injecting venom that her enhanced body easily purged and ignored, though she found the pain from it to be almost pleasant in how grounding into reality it was. Ever since she’d been evolved by Salem she’d felt strangely disconnected from the world around her. She wasn’t a part of the living world anymore, not really. It felt as if she was part of both.</p><p>Emotions were diluted, no real need to eat or sleep. So much of it had been removed due to its irrelevance, just like she was taking away from her own children.</p><p>But the pain as the rather large snake’s fangs pierced into her arm was almost pleasant in how it brought her back to her body, so she glanced down at it with a small smile as she brought it over to the table and immediately killed it, simply willing its heart to stop, and the reptile went limp in her arms, no longer able to use its powerful muscles to tighten its grip around her and instead its deadweight dropping.<br/>Laying it on the table next to her unfinished child, she opened up its mouth and head and studied the fangs and venom sacs. They were an amazing result of evolution, but a complex one, and she hummed in fascination as she examined it. The snake in her hands had a venom that was more of a neurotoxin than it was openly lethal.</p><p>Just what she needed.</p><p> </p><p>Placing a finger on one of the venom sacs, she closed her eyes and examined how it felt. Every part of it on cellular level, including the makeup of the venom itself and the way it was generated inside of the body. Nodding as she gradually began to understand it, a wide smile blooming on her face as she began to comprehend the beauty of it, she opened her eyes and looked over at the girl, holding up the body of the snake.</p><p>“See, evolution made so many mistakes with these creatures. I can feel them. They’ve generated venom for centuries, but I can <em> feel </em> the dormant cells from back when their venom was borderline useless. But not anymore.” Reaching into the snake’s head, she removed the venom sacs and held them in her hands, holding them up in her fingers so the girl could see them, giving a satisfied smirk. “Humanity has <em> nothing </em> like this. And never would. We’re frozen. Abandoned. <em> Neglected. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Turning to the unfinished body of her child, she began the impossibly delicate process of inserting the sacs, having to truly sink into her Semblance in order to connect the nerves and cellular design that was alien to the host flesh. But her child’s body had no natural healing, so it stood no chance of rejecting the invasive flesh outright. But it was still delicate work to tie it all together and fuse it into the one system.<br/>Fangs and claws were one thing, but this was far beyond anything she’d attempted before, and as she focused and fell into the ebb off her Semblance, of how the flesh tasted and felt, both the living flesh and the black blood she was infusing it with to strengthen it and perfect it, she felt it all click together.</p><p>Smiling widely, she came back to the waking world and immediately extracted the large fangs from the snake and inserted them into the mouth of her child, with linking them to the venom sacs a far easier process, with it simply being a line of nerves and muscles connecting to bone. Infusing new flesh into the fangs, she grew them large enough to be appropriate for a human sized mouth, and strengthened them to be comparable with the rest of the reinforced bone and tissue.</p><p>With practice, she’d be able to replicate the venom sacs from scratch, without needing to extract pre-existing ones, just like she was getting more able to grow claws and fangs from nothing.</p><p>Looking down when she was done, she smiled widely at her child. Elongated teeth extracted from wolves and grown stronger and larger, and now with large fangs that would inject a paralytic venom.</p><p>Her new child, her <em>Huntsman Hunter</em>, was almost complete.</p><p>Almost. </p><p> </p><p>There was one last major evolution to be granted to it, and it would be almost impossible to accomplish.<br/>But if she managed it, then there would be <em> no </em> stopping what she could do.<br/>It would be the sign that she was truly able to fix up what nature neglected to do.</p><p>Sealing up all the flesh and bones of her child’s body, she rolled her onto her stomach, with nothing left to do but wait for her child to return with the new pieces she needed, which was only another five minutes away, from what she could feel of them.</p><p>While she was able to feel her children out in the world, her accuracy wasn’t as powerful and direct as she wanted yet. But it was getting stronger the more powerful her children became.</p><p>The more aura she infused into a child, the more connected to them she was, which made sense. It also meant that her best children would always be close to her heart.</p><p>The thought made her smile.</p><p> </p><p>Turning around again and leaning back against the edge of the table, she gave the girl a confident and thoughtful look. “In my hands, I can make humans better than they could become on their own. You’re not changing, not evolving. Nature <em> doesn’t care </em> about you. You’re stuck. I can help you. I’m <em> trying </em>to help you. You’ll understand once it’s your turn. But I need a few special parts before I can risk ruining you.”</p><p> </p><p>Shaking her head slowly, Delilah looked up at the ceiling in thought. Her grand ambition was a while off and she knew that, and it would require absolutely perfect parts in order to be viable, the sort of parts that would be rare in small towns like those around here. Capturing and harvesting them from Huntsmen would be her best bet, due to their aura keeping their insides in excellent condition. So all Lionheart had to do was be a good boy and keeping sending them south. While they wouldn’t all find their way to her immediately, once she released one or two of her next experimental generation of children out into the world they’d be able to find and subdue Huntsmen pretty easily to bring them back for her.</p><p>In theory. But first she had to get the children right, and while her first one was going well so far it was the next part of the process that was going to be a challenge, since it required growing entirely new and unnatural bone structure and musculature from scratch based on a smaller design. Not to mention it was something that the human brain had no experience doing, with an entire new muscle group and center of mass.</p><p>But she had hope, and it was worth attempting. Even if this first attempt didn’t work perfectly, eventually she’d manage it. And then she’d be able to perfect it.</p><p>It was just like when she first started.</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in eager excitement at the new experiment, she allowed her child to sneak in through the door with the bucket it was holding in its hands, putting it down on the table next to her and receiving a smile and some appreciative scratches on the head for its work.</p><p>“Thank you baby, you did well.” She cooed, giving a wide smile. “Back to the trees now, though. We can’t have you seen yet, and you won’t all fit in here now.”</p><p>Without a sound or a nod of acknowledgement, the child left the house and snuck back to the trees to continue to hide and hunt the occasional grimm for parts.</p><p>Standing up from the table, Delilah looked down into the bucket and smiled in excited satisfaction, reaching in to retrieve the body of the rather large bird. It was only a basic forest bird, nothing special about it, but it was large for its species and it was just what she needed as she placed it on the table and began to examine the wings. It was going to be the most delicate work she had ever attempted, likely taking hours as she was going to be forced to grow an entire new nervous system and recalibrate her child’s brain before she could wake her up.</p><p>But she had <em> desperately </em>wanted to try this particular experiment ever since the beginning of her work, before she’d awakened even her first child.</p><p>So, with one hand on the body of the bird’s corpse, she placed her other hand on the yet to be awakened body of her child, and through delicate and careful flooding and manipulation of black flesh she began the process of sprouting wings.</p><p> </p><p>The horrific cracking and creaking as white bone burst through the skin of the dead woman’s back, whole new bone systems growing out as she encouraged the white living bone to grow, infusing it with black flesh as she went, she could hear the girl’s sister thrashing again violently in the corner, unable to scream or whine or beg but able to thrash against her chains in horror and desperation.</p><p>But it didn’t matter. The girl would understand eventually.</p><p>The process of growing tissue and sinew onto fresh bones was tedious, and delicate, and took hours even when it wasn’t a flesh structure she had no experience with replicating. Blood dripped liberally onto the table and bones cracked as muscles appeared and held them together. It was a horrific thing to behold, if the reaction of the girl in the corner was any indication.</p><p> </p><p>But evolution was never pretty.</p><p> </p><p>And <em>this</em> girl’s pupa was close to splitting and finishing.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Where We're Looking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Team SKTC touch down on Sanus to begin their long journey, four months away from even reaching Ywitawa, and forced to march across a continent with danger and darkness around every bend in the forested roads, meanwhile Neo arrives in Istburn nursing her injuries from her fight with Chrystal, and in her aimless wandering of the city streets she locks eyes with a ghost.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The grass and ground were already starting to frost enough in the early mornings that it crunched underfoot as SKTC hopped down from the airjet ramp and onto the ground of Vale, the sun only barely breaching the horizon as giving them enough light to see where they were standing.<br/>All last goodbyes had been said, every last attempt to talk them out of it had been given, every bit of planning had been done. There was no putting it off any longer, and the four of them glanced around at each other as the airjet ramp closed and it took off slowly, before leaving them behind as far inland as Logan had been able to drop them off without violating closed airspace and possibly being detected.</p><p>With nothing but trees and shadows around them in the small clearing they’d found, Tacita quickly extended her vision and scanned their surroundings, nodding in satisfaction that they were alone in her maximum range, and all four of them relaxed slightly.</p><p>There didn’t feel like there was much to say. It was four weeks of travel to the eastern Sanus coastline, specifically to the port of Niandus where Qrow had a contact in the Mistral merchant navy who could get them across to Anima easily enough, for a price. But, having Kylar with them, they weren’t short on money, which was a degree of breathing room that normally wasn’t afforded them on missions into wilderness.</p><p> </p><p>Speaking of wilderness, there was nothing around them but trees and earth, and Tacita sighed before pointing out the direction they needed to head.</p><p>Shina nodded, glancing around at them all and giving a determined look. “Let’s start moving. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.”</p><p>“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover <em> every </em>day.” Chrystal smirked as she walked past, nudging him with her hip as she passed, her hands in her pockets. “I hope the three of you kept in shape while you were lounging around comfy in the last week.”</p><p>Raising an eyebrow at her attitude, Shina rolled his eyes and followed, falling in beside her with the other two just behind them, Kylar keeping a guiding eye on Tacita while the girl gently used her Semblance to keep an eye on their surroundings constantly, but not to a large enough range she’d be drained at any concerning speed.</p><p> </p><p>As predicted, the day passed tediously but easily, merely a matter of walking through easy enough terrain and dealing with only the occasional Grimm that tried to bother them. Having Tacita’s vision and Chrystal’s reflexes made it impossible to be surprised or ambushed by the creatures, and it barely slowed them down as they travelled, the sun moving across the sky. A complete lack of excitement, and that would be the case for the next few weeks. Sanus had few things that could surprise them, it was mostly the boredom that was going to be their enemy, if the first day was any indication. But Chrystal spent most of the walk with earphones in listening to music from her scroll, meanwhile Shina practically dozed as he walked. It was going to be a long month of travelling.</p><p>Setting up camp that night, Chrystal immediately volunteered to take first watch, and while the others didn’t object both Shina and Tacita gave the girl curious and concerned looks to her back while they were setting up their bedrolls, Kylar crouched over the small fire both working on trying to prepare their rations for dinner, but also attempting to transmute the flames into red dust.</p><p>But the passion and fervor of red dust didn’t come easily to him, he had always been too composed and emotionally dismissive, so while he achieved some shimmering, that was the extent, and he sighed in defeat as his aura dropped low from the strain and he went back to preparing their dinner, handing out camping bowls of their basic travel noodles.</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at the bowl in her hands in resigned disgust, Chrystal stabbed her fork into the rations as if trying to kill it.</p><p>“Hello again old friend.”</p><p> </p><p>Again, Shina glanced over at her due to the strange edge that appeared in her tone, temporary and gone in an instant as a shadow behind her eyes, but it had vanished so quickly that it was almost too quick to have been noticed by anyone who didn’t know her as well as he did. But if she noticed his look, she didn’t acknowledge it, so he merely thinned his lips in wariness and went back to eating, simply forcing down the bland food and then preparing for sleep, intending on taking third watch.</p><p>Kylar kissed Tacita goodnight softly and lightly after finishing his own dinner and curling into his bedroll as well, able to get decent sleep due to taking the dawn watch. Meanwhile Tacita stayed up longer, staring into the campfire with her eyes while using her semblance to glance around them in small intervals just to keep an eye on things while Chrystal sat up in the nearest tree, keeping an eye and ear out as well.</p><p> </p><p>As the breathing rhythms of Shina and Kylar steadied, the two of them falling asleep quickly with discipline and practice, Tacita glanced up at where Chrystal was sitting in her tree with a gun resting on her lap so that she’d be ready in case of trouble.</p><p>Knowing she was being looked at, Chrystal glanced down at Tacita and raised her eyebrows curiously with a soft smile.</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>“You doing okay?” Tacita asked softly and quietly, making her way over to the bottom of the tree, which was enough paces away from the fire that Chrystal’s eyes would adjust to the darkness enough to see any movement.</p><p>Frowning for a moment, Chrystal nodded with another smile.</p><p>“Yeah, just not particularly looking forward to weeks of walking.”</p><p>“That’s not what I’m asking about, hon.”</p><p>“I know what you’re asking about.” Chrystal sighed, looking away. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”</p><p> </p><p>Staying at the bottom of the tree and looking up at her, Tacita took in a deep breath and let it out sadly, seeing the shielded look on her teammates face. There were shadows in her friend’s eyes that hadn’t been there before, and it hurt her to see.</p><p>But there was nothing she could do to take them away, so she nodded resignedly.</p><p>“Okay love. I’m here when you want to.”</p><p>“Thanks.” Chrystal’s tone was dead, and she didn’t look back at her. “I’m alright. Get some sleep, I’ll wake you when it’s your shift.”</p><p> </p><p>After a few more moments of looking up at her in sad concern, Tacita nodded and stepped away, heading over to her bedroll. Curling up into it, she once again tried to somehow repeat what she’d managed at the battle, and be able to project herself while her body was asleep. But nothing worked, and she drifted off without any success. Sitting up in her tree, Chrystal glanced over at her friends and a small dead smile appeared on her lips as she took them in. It wasn’t their fault, and she knew she shouldn’t lock them out, or take anything out on them, but that self-awareness didn’t just get rid of everything that had happened. If Qrow was right and she’d end up handling it all easier than they did, that didn’t change the fact they were having an easier time than her currently.</p><p>Sighing in frustration at her own pettiness, she boredly began to peel bark from the tree she was sitting in, but only in small bits. With four weeks of walking ahead of them, it was going to be nothing but days spent with nothing but her thoughts, and nights either sitting up on watch and her mind always drifting, or she’d be asleep, and she wasn’t sure what that was going to be like yet.</p><p>The previous night, she’d finally managed a good night’s sleep in a bed, but the nightmares had woken her up. Nightmares she didn’t remember the moment she opened her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes as she continued to fiddle with the bark, she tried to keep her mind blank, but the methods and practices to focus her mind that they’d all been trained in by the academies had never worked for her. Ever.</p><p>And now that she’d actually seen…</p><p>Her grip tightened on the handle of the gun in her left hand and she drummed her fingers on it, trying to find comfort in the familiar feel of it. But no comfort came, instead only thoughts and memories did. It had been a long week, and she hadn’t given herself time to process it, she knew that.<br/>But if she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to process it.</p><p>While most of what she’d done could be written off as self-defense or merely fighting for survival, she’d murdered the White Fang member in cold blood. Something inside of her mind, that cold black ice she was still trying to understand, had told her it was okay to do it. And because she’d <em> wanted </em>to do it, she’d just...done it.</p><p> </p><p>And what were her excuses for Neo? Numerous, and each one as weak as the last. The sooner she could forget those damn eyes, and her scent, the better, and she could dedicate that brainpower to things that actually <em> mattered </em>now.</p><p>...but...she did hope that the girl was okay.</p><p>She slumped slightly.</p><p> </p><p>Plenty of the fights they’d done together, they’d gone too far. Everyone enjoys what they’re good at, and the two of them were excellent fighters and they’d worked well together.<br/>But they could have left <em> some </em>of their opponents alive. They hadn’t needed to go so far.</p><p>And yet, they had. It hadn’t been a discussion or a formal decision, they’d each made the step for themselves and for their own reasons.</p><p> </p><p>What were Chrystal’s reasons for the killings she did? When someone was as fast and as quiet as she was, choking them out is just as easy as slitting their throat. But she hadn’t done the first one particularly often. In only a few days of desperation, her interest and patience for mercy and playing around had been eaten away. But she wasn’t so sure it was an out-of-nowhere transformation</p><p><br/>She’d always been a bit heartless, in her own way.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing and scowling in frustration, she rubbed the back of her gloved hand along her forehead, banishing the train of thought as quickly as she could, but not fast enough before her mind threw some of the worst moments of those days at her and she felt ice go through her veins.</p><p>The sudden eerie sound of steel sliding from a sheath had her jolt out of her mulling and her grip on her gun tightened as she sucked in a breath in anticipation, but as she looked around the camp there was no movement, and she didn’t sense any danger around. Frowning and blinking a few times, she relaxed her grip and shook her head a few times with a scowl at her mind’s stupidity. It was dumb, and she’d get over it, and it’d stop.</p><p>But she wouldn’t mind a solid night of dreamless sleep again soon.</p><p>Spinning her pistol in her hand playfully, she watched the movement, her mind desperate to wander out of her control, and after only a few moments she gave up and rested it back on her lap again, her grip on it relaxing. There was nothing to do except keep an eye and an ear out and let the hours pass before she’d get to go to bed for a solid amount of hours, and all she had to do until then was ignore her own brain.</p><p> </p><p>They’d been taught that the thoughts would come in bursts, and that when it happened it would pass, but that wasn’t the current case for her. They hadn’t stopped for a moment, coming constantly, and all she was able to do was put them into a little box in her mind that was surrounded by sharp needles and fuzziness.</p><p>Eventually it would break open and hit, the boxes always did, but she’d cross that bridge when she got to it and she just had to hope they were in a town with a bar at that moment.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting back against the trunk behind her, one leg dangling off the branch properly while her other was crossed over her lap, she sank into the rest of her watch, the moon moving across the sky slowly, and she wasn’t surprised when nothing eventful happened. With communications down, merchant caravans and other travellers would be basically nonexistent for a while, which meant that not only would they be alone on the roads but it meant that bandits would be drawn elsewhere for pickings, taking the Grimm with them.</p><p>It was going to be a very boring few weeks. But Anima was going to be a different story once they got there. It was a wild and untamed land, of thick forest and mountains, and in recent years the land had been taken over more and more by Grimm and bandits, law and order withering away for reasons no-one had been able to figure out.</p><p>Which meant it was going to be an extremely hard and dangerous few weeks even before they got to Ywitawa. There were towns on the way, but no way of knowing how friendly and safe they would be.</p><p>The other three were dreading it and cautious, meanwhile Chrystal had felt a strange pulse of relief in her gut at the thought of there actually being some excitement instead of just months of walking around with their hands in their pockets. It wasn’t a healthy mentality, but it would keep her going until they hopped off the boat on the other side and had to start actually dealing with it.</p><p>The hours of her watch passed as fast as watch hours always did, and her mind wandered in dangerous directions the entire time, but she always caught it before she sank too far. Eventually, checking the time on her scroll, she swung her legs off the branch and silently dropped down to the ground, spinning her gun back into its holster and quietly making her way over to shake Tacita awake, the other girl snapping to alertness immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re up.”</p><p>“Already?” Tacita grumbled playfully as she sat up, and Chrystal rolled her eyes with a smirk as she removed her harness for bed.</p><p>“Just read a book. It’ll be over before you know it.”</p><p> </p><p>Grumbling as she stood from her bedroll and stretched, Tacita clipped her quiver onto her back and grabbed her bow to find somewhere to sit and close her eyes. Sitting against the trunk of the same tree that Chrystal had climbed, she opened up her Semblance to keep watch with her physical eyes closed as she focused, slipping into a practiced trance that she’d trained for years as she regulated her breathing and delicately finessed the drain her semblance had on her aura to make sure she could sustain it longer than if she was simply using it out and about.<br/>It was still exhausting though. People underestimate just how much background sensory information that the brain unconsciously disregards or processes without conscious awareness, because if people were hit with all of it they’d be in agony. And that’s what the cost of her Semblance was.</p><p>Every speck of dirt, every leaf in every tree, every miniscule sound. The breathing of her friends on the other side of the clearing was just as loud as the gentle breeze and the leaves moving in the trees. The chittering of nesting birds nearby, and the smallest nocturnal animals visible to her with such a clarity it hurt her to look at too closely.</p><p>It was all inside of her, in every direction. That was the cost.</p><p>The pain. But she’d trained and trained for years to be able to filter it, and handle it, and sustain it.</p><p>Sensory based Semblances weren’t uncommon, and they all shared the common drawback of being <em> mentally </em> draining compared to most other Semblances being <em> physically </em>draining, such as the Semblances of her three teammates.</p><p> </p><p>And hers being one of the strongest sensory Semblances to come through Beacon, it had another drawback. It was hard to focus on any one individual thing.</p><p>The things that mattered.</p><p>Her perception made her an excellent scout and archer, but her inability to pay attention to what was directly in front of her made her a terrible friend, a substandard girlfriend, and often a liability as a teammate.</p><p>Or at least she <em> felt </em>like it did.</p><p> </p><p>The drain on her aura was noticeable, but tiny, and she’d easily be able to sustain it until her watch was over and she could recharge it in her sleep. This was going to be every night that they were in the wilds and unable to stay in taverns, and they’d all better get used to it. For the next unknown number of months she was going to be forced to use her semblance <em> constantly </em>. During the day as they walked, in order to keep them safe from ambushes and being surprised, and at night to keep watch and protect the others as they slept.</p><p>It was going to be a very, very painful few months for her.</p><p>Sighing, she shook her head and resigned herself to it.</p><p>This was the job, and they’d taken it. Part of being a hero was the struggle.</p><p>You couldn’t just skip to the finale.</p><p> </p><p>Four weeks of painful tedium until they could cross into Anima, which was <em> truly </em>dangerous territory where her Semblance would be life-or-death for them.</p><p>No pressure.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>One Week Later</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As Neo made her way down the streets of Istburn underneath the late-afternoon sun, masked to look like just a random girl on the street, she had a small frown on her face as her thoughts were far away. The walk to Istburn from Vale had taken over a week, and she’d been limping for the first third of it as her aura had fought to heal over the large wound in her stomach that Chrystal had given to her in their fight.</p><p>Simply at the thought of it her stomach twinged, and she put a hand over the still tender scar with a wince and then a sigh, pausing in the street for a moment to breathe through the pain and also sort out her thoughts. Even though she was in the small city to grab a new ID and then get the hell out of Vale, she had no idea where exactly to head next, which meant she wasn’t exactly in any sort of hurry.</p><p>If you’re on your way to nowhere, no point heading there fast.</p><p> </p><p>It also didn’t help that the first frost had started, and she glanced down at the hair-thin sheen that covered the paths, and made the grass crunch underfoot even during the day if you walked on it. The mud from the heavy rains two weeks ago had turned to frozen grit, easier to walk on but a warning sign of the snows that were soon to come.</p><p>And once the snows hit, the ability to move around became almost impossible unless you were willing to go large distances on foot. Doing that all alone would be suicide.</p><p> </p><p>So she certainly had the time to think, and she pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment before rolling her eyes and shrugging off her strangely heavy mood, refusing to allow her mind to linger on the events of all of what happened no matter how much they tried to worm their way back into her head in the moments she let her guard down. By all rights, she shouldn’t even still be alive.</p><p>She’d lost the fight, Chrystal had beaten her, and the girl had made it very clear right from the beginning of what it would mean if that was the outcome. But instead of her own blade in the chest, she got a kiss, a fist in the head, and her wound bandaged.</p><p>Growling in frustration at her inability to control her own thoughts, Neo rolled her eyes again and looked around, trying to find some sort of distraction in where she was heading. Istburn was nice enough, she’d come here a couple of times, and while a couple of them were for business she also just liked it here and she wasn’t sure why.</p><p>It was comforting, and strangely familiar, so being in these streets again after the hell of the past year had a weight temporarily off her shoulders. She knew it would come back eventually, but for now she could have a reprieve, and that would give her the energy to decide what the hell to do next.</p><p> </p><p>Both herself and Chrystal had gotten out of the city safely, and while Chrystal had almost certainly returned to her team and was back with them, Neo found herself scarily aimless for the first time in well over a year, with nothing to do and nowhere to call home. It was both liberating and daunting at the same time. <br/>If she had any idea of where Cinder or the Rose girl had gone, that’s where she’d be heading at full speed, but she had no idea where to start. While she knew all of Roman’s contacts, most of them had scattered to the wind, but there were a couple in Istburn who could be helpful if she poked them hard enough.</p><p>Letting out a breath in a huff, she gave up on aimlessly wandering the streets and began to glance up and down streets looking for somewhere to eat. While she’d grabbed basic food in the villages she’d passed, it was all market food and nothing truly satisfying. And it had been <em> days </em>since her last satisfying meal.</p><p>Raising her eyebrows at a rather large and cosy looking diner, she shrugged to herself and skipped along and up into the doors, relaxing in relief at the heating taking an edge off the late-fall frost air.</p><p>Forced to order her usual way by typing it out on her scroll and showing the screen, she ate slowly, finding warm enjoyment in every bite. Few things are better than diner food, if you don’t mind the calories, and her lifestyle and line of work was filled with enough exercise she could definitely indulge herself every now and again.</p><p>Though that line of work was now...nonexistent.</p><p> </p><p>Again reminded by her train of thought that she was aimless, she glared at the burger in her hands as if it was to blame and then took a large bite out of it, before resting her chin on the palm of her hand and taking a sip out of her milkshake through the straw, looking out the window and watching the people moving around in the afternoon chill. The air and energy of Istburn was always strangely relaxed no matter what was happening elsewhere in the world, and she’d always found it calming to come here.</p><p>Roman had normally come with her though, and right now she could <em> really </em>use one of his terrible jokes and his loud judgement of her food choices, so she took another long sip of her milkshake as if expecting that if she did it loudly enough he would materialise purely to roll his eyes and judge her for the sugar even as he’d steal a sip. Giggling silently at the memory of that happening on numerous occasions, she rolled her eyes in amusement before going still and her eyes going heavy, frowning sadly and continuing to look out of the window.</p><p>Looking out at the people, she wondered how many of them had gone to the Festival and had escaped. Or had loved ones that had made the easy trip and then hadn’t come home. It wouldn’t surprise her if plenty of students from the academy had come from here, and she imagined quite a few of them hadn’t come back.</p><p>And it was Cinder’s fault.</p><p> </p><p>Sure, <em> she’d </em>done her work in it, but she’d done it for Roman, and he’d been well under Cinder’s boot by the time things got scary.</p><p>Puppet strings are useless without a puppeteer, and she had simply been a string just like her friend. Now her friend was gone, and she’d spent a week forced to look into the eyes of someone who had lost everything in the city as well, like looking into the embodiment of the city’s grief and wrath.</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal had certainly acted like it whenever they’d come across looters and lingering White Fang. If she was the embodiment of the city’s wrath, then the city was certainly <em> passionate </em>about the emotion.</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at the disposable cup and swirling her milkshake with the straw, she scrunched up her mouth as she thought over it all. The big questions and the big conundrums weren’t her part in all this, they were Roman’s department, meanwhile she handled the <em> little </em>problems and difficulties. He’d use that big-question brain of his to figure out what a potential problem was, and she’d hop along and solve it with a smile. And they were good at it.</p><p>Her appetite disintegrating, she pushed the almost finished burger away from her, though she made sure to snatch up the last of the chips and pop them into her mouth as she hopped up, leaving enough lien behind for it to be a generous tip, and she made her way outside with her milkshake in hand. Scrunching her mouth up again in thought, she realised she didn’t even have a plan for what to do with herself tonight.</p><p>Chances are the safehouse she was intending on staying in was vacant and undiscovered, and there was enough emergency stuff there for her to get pretty much anywhere she wanted to once she picked a place. But that was the problem.</p><p>Still no ideas.</p><p> </p><p>With the sun lowering in the sky and entering early-evening, she pulled her jacket up to keep out the chill and increased her pace, finishing her milkshake and making sure to toss the cup into a public bin as she passed. She was a criminal, not a barbarian.</p><p>The safehouse was about halfway across the city, and she’d figure out what to do with herself once she was in comfortable clothes, preferably with a blanket. Frankly she’d murder a man for a bath, and considering only one person would be using the hot water this time she had every intention of soaking until she was nothing but prune, and scrubbing herself spotless.</p><p>She didn’t need to remove her Semblance from herself to be aware of just how filthy her clothes were, and the sheer amount of blood crusted in places would be a labour to get out and whiten, but she had practice.</p><p> </p><p>Hands tucked into her belt as she wandered her way down the main streets, she was forced to resist the urge to skip in her usual way, knowing it would simply attract attention. The hardest part of wearing her disguises was the need to change her mannerisms in order to blend in, and while there was a very slim chance of being recognised here it wasn’t <em> impossible, </em> so it was best to be careful. She had a standard collection of disguises she used, each with their own ways of walking, sitting, slouching, and even how they held expressions for different moods.<br/>It took months to properly build a new mask, memorising the individual mannerisms after finding ones that feel and look natural for it, but it was also great fun to play around with them and see what she could get away with. They’d been vital for her work, and now it might just save her life.</p><p>Silently humming to herself as she turned a corner, she paused slightly when she heard the sound of laughter and chipper conversation, a rather large building up ahead had its doors pushed open as a group of young girls and a few boys made their way out, most of them dressed in workout clothes but some of them having clearly changed back into just regular street wear.</p><p>It wasn’t a typical high school, those would have been let out hours ago, so she tilted her head in curiosity but also gave a soft smile at the relaxed joy the kids seemed to be in, an unsurprisingly rare feeling right now. A couple of adults, barely in their twenties, had exited the building as well, dressed similarly to the kids, and either talking between each other or with some of the students, smiling fondly.</p><p> </p><p>One younger woman in particular stood out, smiling widely at a boy who was maybe fifteen and nodding at whatever he was saying, before ruffling his hair in farewell and stepping away with two of other other adults, waving goodbye to the students who scattered down different streets. As the adults stepped into the streetlights, Neo felt a pure shiver of ice go through her blood and her breath caught in her throat.</p><p>Tall, pink-hair, a sharp face and a dancer’s build, Neo had only seen one photograph of the girl but it had been clear enough she could recognise the other girl easily.</p><p>But she was dead. Neo was looking at a ghost, and her eyes widened as the other girl casually wandered away with two of the other grown-ups, not speaking and simply listening and either nodding or shaking her head along with the conversation.</p><p>Unable to move for a few moments as she watched the two women and one man wander away in the direction of the main recreational district, Neo forced herself to start walking, following the three from a reasonable distance, specifically following the girl apparently named Cypher. They made their way along the main streets until they reached one of the open bars and slipped their way inside, and Neo couldn’t stop herself from following them inside and taking a seat at her own table while the three others took seats at the bar itself, and Neo was content to watch and quietly freak out internally.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Cypher felt a slight soreness in her muscles that she had missed, having spent most of the day teaching class after class for students of a whole range, with adult classes in the mornings, child classes just after lunch, and teenage classes in the afternoon. While she was in incredible shape, she had still been dancing and educating on her feet for nine hours, so she was content to slump down onto a stool and order a drink, finding herself ordering a vodka and soda and staring at the glass quietly when it arrived. Poking the ice around in the glass for a moment, she felt her face go sad before she took a drink, closing her eyes to savour the taste as it went down her throat and reminded her of better times. It wasn’t her normal drink, but she’d signed the request for it before she’d noticed she was doing it. Her sad look morphed into a small smile in memory as she took another sip, before being dragged back into the conversation.</p><p> </p><p>“Cypher? Still with us?”</p><p> </p><p>Juliett grinned with a raised eyebrow, nudging the slightly younger girl. While Cypher taught ballet, and also contemporary if they had more students than the other teachers could handle, Juliett taught ballroom, but she didn’t come across as having the temperament for it, proving her point by taking a large gulp from her beer and grinning at Cypher again.</p><p>Raising her eyebrows, Cypher made a show of shuffling around so she was facing the conversation properly, and Kimberly and Hill grinned at her while they were immediately busy in their own quiet conversation, the young married couple vanishing into their own little world every opportunity that appeared, and Cypher felt another small pang in her gut as she watched before Juliett snapped her fingers in front of her face again.</p><p>“You okay babe?”</p><p>Frowning for a moment, Cypher shrugged and looked down at her cup, and Juliett gave a sympathetic whine and put her hand on Cypher’s shoulder for a moment.</p><p>“It’s been good to have you back, and, well, we think you’re doing good. Considering...you know” Juliett’s voice was slightly pitying, and Cypher felt a sting of agitation at it, but the woman meant well.</p><p>Forcing a small smile, Cypher felt a small twinge in the back of her mind, and her eyes must have twitched or fluttered as Juliett frowned in concern.</p><p>“Just tired? Or is something up?”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning as she focused on what the small twinge had been, Cypher bit her bottom lip for a moment but then cleared up, giving an apologetic and reassuring smile as she took another drink.</p><p>“Oh babe…” Juliett sighed, tapping her fingers on her bottle. “It’s good you’re back in the swing of it, but if you’re tired you don’t have to come for drinks, you know.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment as the twinge returned, Cypher finished her drink and nodded sadly, reaching out to put her hand on Juliett’s in affectionate thanks for a moment before standing and stretching, sadly waving goodbye to the others and getting concerned frowns and waves in response as she left the bar without looking back, her hands in the pockets of her typical white pants as she began to simply wander through the city streets, narrowing her eyes in frustration and a glint of anxiety as she flexed her fingers inside of her pockets.</p><p>Meanwhile Neo simply followed as carefully as possible from a distance, a small concerned frown on her own face as her ‘sister’s’ demeanour and mood, and she found herself curious where the girl was staying and what her deal was. Watching as a few twists and corners in her walk the other girl vanished down a sidestreet, Neo carefully followed, warning bells going off in the edge of her mind and her hand keeping close to the handle of her parasol just in case of danger.</p><p> </p><p>Turning down the side street, she watched as Cypher turned her own corner up ahead, vanishing into the shadows, and Neo sped up again, turning the same corner and pausing as she saw that Cypher was nowhere in sight, drawing her parasol in confusion as she turned on her feet, looking around herself.</p><p>Spinning back the way Cypher had gone, she heard a slight sound almost like a breeze before she was being grabbed from behind and slammed against the nearest building wall firmly, a silent gasp leaving her chest at the surprise and impact, before blinking as she looked into the suspicious glare of Cypher, who had somehow gotten behind her.<br/>Thinking over it in confusion, Neo kicked herself internally when she remembered that Chrystal had mentioned once that Cypher could teleport, but she was still surprised at having been discovered. Cypher raised her eyebrows in a clear question, and Neo opened and closed her mouth a few times in hesitation, unsure how to even respond, before she closed her eyes to take a breath of bravery and let her disguise shimmer away, revealing her true appearance.</p><p>Her eyes blinking in surprise and anxiety, Cypher released her and took a few steps back, her surprise not being enough to stop her foot sliding back into a combat stance even though she looked to be unarmed. Neo held her hand up placatingly even as she held her parasol in her other, her eyes wide and as reassuring as possible.</p><p> </p><p>Being so close to each other, in the flesh, they could both feel a strange nausea and panic at the similarities they knew were both there, but a major difference being that Neo wasn’t even five feet tall, yet Cypher was six feet, towering over her. But other than that, now they were next to each other and able to see each other's features in plain detail, it was undeniable.</p><p> </p><p>They were sisters.</p><p> </p><p>While Neo was still trying to adjust to the fact she was looking at a girl that Chrystal had been completely convinced was dead, Cypher was recovering from the fact that Neo was here in the first place. Despite Chrystal’s pursuit of the girl, Cypher had never met her, having only seen the pictures in the file Chrystal had shown her.</p><p>So while her own panic wasn’t as powerful, it was still enough to completely throw her for a loop, and the two girls merely stood there scrutinising and eyeballing each other for a minute, eyes flicking up and down.</p><p>While Cypher was taller, Neo had slightly more curves, and Cypher’s facial features were sharper while Neo’s were a bit softer, all up meaning that while Cypher could be described as ‘striking’, Neo could instead <em>mistakenly</em> be described as ‘adorable’, and that contrast had them both befuddled and fascinated as they studied each other.</p><p>But eventually one of them had to talk, and Cypher’s mouth opened and closed a few times before she bit the inside of her lips and shook her head slightly helplessly, Neo nodding in agreement before glancing at her parasol and then back to Cypher, raising her eyebrows in an obvious question, and Cypher hesitantly nodded for Neo to put her parasol away, any chance of hostilities washing away as shock was more important to process.</p><p> </p><p>Taking in the short girl in front of her, Cypher swallowed.</p><p><em> ‘I have...no idea where to start.’ </em>Thinking to herself with a silent laugh, she spread her hands helplessly, and Neo shrugged equally as confused, somehow easily getting the gist of what Cypher was thinking.</p><p>
  <em> ‘I’ve got no ideas.’ </em>
</p><p>They both blinked.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Wait.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘Wait.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Blinking and frowning, Cypher tilted her head and licked her lips with the tip of her tongue slightly in thought.</p><p>
  <em> “Can you…” </em>
</p><p><em> “Can YOU…” </em>Neo thought as well, taking a step forward and looking up at her sister.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You…” </em>
</p><p><em> “We...wait.” </em>Shaking her head in confusion, Neo sucked in a breath.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Okay...” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Hang on.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>They both thought at the same time, Cypher holding up a hand to have Neo pause just as Neo did the same, both of them then rolling their eyes and then gesturing in frustrated shock and confusion at the same time as well.</p><p>Cypher scowled and turned away, putting her hands behind her head as she thought.<em> “Just...give me a minute, here.” </em></p><p><em> “You? You’re the one doing this!” </em>Neo internally huffed in frustration and no small degree of fear.</p><p>
  <em> “No I’m not! It must be your Semblance or something.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “That’s not what my Semblance does! I’m silent and create illusions. Not...this!” </em>
</p><p><em> “Well it’s not mine either! I’m...silent...and…” </em> Cypher’s eyes went wide, and the two of them took another step back from each other as Cypher finished her thought. <em> “...can teleport.” </em></p><p> </p><p>Standing silently and staring at each other for a little while as they both calmed down a bit, Neo took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, crossing her arms over her chest and raising her eyebrow.</p><p><em> “I think we have a lot to talk about, </em> <b> <em>Cypher</em> </b> <em> .” </em></p><p>Crossing her own arms and her small trademark smirk appearing on her lips. <em> “I think we do too, </em> <b> <em>Neo</em> </b> <em> .” </em></p><p><em> “...drink?” </em>Neo raised her eyebrows.</p><p>
  <em> “Well it’ll make this easier.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’ve got a place.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Pausing and looking at Neo for a few moments, thinking over it, it was enough for Cypher to figure out that she could still have private thoughts, as the twinge vanished if she deliberately tried to shut it out. She knew who Neo was, and what the girl had done, even if it was true that they were sisters.<br/>And now she was being invited somewhere private by the woman who had been following her for over two hours?</p><p>Narrowing her eyes, she internally shrugged, and put her hands into her pockets.</p><p>
  <em> “Lead the way.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in cautious satisfaction, Neo led the way through the streets towards the safehouse she hoped was still intact and secure. A safehouse you don’t feel safe in isn’t a safehouse, which was a more important distinction than most people might think. But heading through the streets into the emptier parts of the city, the rather nice two-story house looked to still be intact without any sort of damage.</p><p>Pausing outside of it, the two girls looked at each other, and when Cypher raised her eyebrows in question Neo simply went over to the loose brick on the side of the house and grabbed the hidden key, but when she came back around she saw that the front door was open and Cypher was poking around inside with a playfully curious look on her face.</p><p>Blinking and scowling, Neo closed the door behind them and locked it before flicking on the lights. The safehouse was nicely furnished, but it was simplistic, not designed for them to stay for any great length of time.</p><p> </p><p>Heading into the living room, she pulled the sheets off the furniture and scrunched them up, satisfied that everything was still clean and in good repair. It hadn’t been that long since she and Roman had been here, but that didn’t mean things would be immaculate.</p><p>Looking over her shoulder as Cypher continued looking around, wandering from room to room, she seemed to naturally understand that upstairs were off-limits, which had Neo blink, before a small wave of gratitude came over her. While she’d have to go upstairs eventually, she’d prefer to check on the bedrooms on her own.</p><p>Especially one of them which she was already emotionally hesitating about looking through.</p><p> </p><p>Finally satisfied, she removed Roman’s hat and her coat and hung them up on a coat stand in the corner of the living room, baffled how Cypher was perfectly comfortable wearing a vest despite how cold the weather was becoming, but the girl seemed genuinely unbothered by the frost in the air.</p><p>The two girls ended up in the small dining room at the same time, looking at each other in cautious scrutiny, defenses up from the uncertainty. A few moments into it, Neo getured to one of the dining room chairs as she grabbed a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from the small drinks cabinet, bringing them over and plopping them down as she took a seat as well across from the other girl, noting as Cypher waited until she poured and took a sip from her own glass before taking a drink.</p><p>Raising an eyebrow in approval at her instincts, Neo nodded as she took a sip, taking off her gloves and folding them onto the table.</p><p>
  <em> “So…” </em>
</p><p><em> “So…” </em>Cypher nursed her drink, before hesitantly removing her own gloves and folding them as well, both of them scowling slightly when they realised they were almost identical gloves that they folded the exact same way.</p><p><em> “How’d you find me?” </em>Cypher tapped her fingers on the side of her glass.</p><p>
  <em> “...accident. I thought you were dead.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Where’d you get <strong>that</strong> idea?” </em>
</p><p><em> “I…” </em> Neo hesitated, before chuckling. <em> “I met your ex. Chrystal. She said you were.” </em></p><p> </p><p>Freezing in place, Cypher choked on air for a moment before gasping some in as a wave of both anxiety and immense relief flowed through her, closing her eyes. <em> “Chrystal’s alive? She got out?” </em></p><p><em> “Yup. We got each other out together.” </em> Neo nodded, feeling a pang of envy at the incredible relief that was clearly in Cypher’s heart as the girl slumped. <em> “She’s a tough girl, hey?” </em></p><p> </p><p>Laughing silently, though Neo had the incredibly strange experience of hearing it inside of her own head, Cypher nodded, even as she was shedding a few tears in sheer relief, coughing them out and wiping from her cheeks, looking up at the roof and giving another relieved and adoring laugh. <em> “She is.” </em></p><p>Frowning and glancing up at Neo, Cypher tilted her head. <em> “Surprised she didn’t beat the shit out of you. She wanted to. For months.” </em></p><p><em> “Yeah. She made that pretty clear.” </em>Neo nodded, knowing that both of them were biting around some of the more important topics, and she was also getting the feeling she was potentially entering risky territory.</p><p> </p><p>How do you meet your sister for the first time and realise that you spent a week banging her ex while each thought the other was dead?</p><p> </p><p>When Cypher froze in her seat, Neo swore loudly inside of her own head.</p><p> </p><p>The room was silent as a crypt as Cypher’s eyes went wide and she blinked, her grip tightening on her glass to a point it creaked dangerously. Neo looked away and sucked in a stressed breath, but Cypher didn’t say anything or physically react in any other way for a couple of minutes as her brain comprehended what Neo had unconsciously broadcast. It was easily five minutes of silence, closer to ten, and Cypher's eyes ended up closing and she looked down at the table, biting her lips and eventually a couple of tears leaking from her eyes as the myriad of confusing and painful emotions overwhelmed her.</p><p><em> “Uhh...I’m sorry...?” </em>Neo gave a helpless look, and Cypher took in a very deep breath and let it out slowly.</p><p>Standing abruptly with neither her chair or the table making a sound, Cypher stormed a few paces away towards the nearest window to stare out of it into the empty street, Neo watching her from her seat and nursing her drink as she watched her sister's shoulders shake for a moment and her head drop, with her fists clenching in what Neo could only guess to be anger and hurt. She didn't really blame her.</p><p>Taking another deep drink, Neo refilled her glass and placed it onto the table, leaning on her arms and watching her sister quietly as the girl composed herself while still facing away from her. Despite trying to stay out of her head, the occasional thought from Cypher came through to her, but instead of words she simply got feelings and flashes of memory, with a deep lump falling into her gut as she watched some of Cypher's happier memories of Chrystal take strain under the hurt. But she knew that ultimately Cypher couldn't hold anything against either of them.</p><p>Despite how fucked up it was of Chrystal to do it, whether or not she was dead.</p><p>Wiping tears from her face, Cypher put her hands into the pockets of her pants and bit the inside of her lip. It had broken her heart quite a bit when herself and Chrystal had broken up, and her feelings for the other girl had never faded, and that fact had always hurt her. The thought that Chrystal was dead had broken off a part of her that had been hurting so badly for days she was having trouble sleeping, and now the immense relief that the woman she loved was alive was tainted grey. Closing her eyes and shaking her head again, she blinked back across the room into her chair and took a drink, causing Neo to jump in surprise and then watch her quietly and sadly for a few moments..</p><p>
  <em>"...you love her."</em>
</p><p>Snorting, Cypher nodded, before narrowing her eyes and raising an eyebrow. <em>"Wouldn't you?"</em></p><p>Staring at her blankly with wide eyes, Neo opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before looking down at the table guiltily, hating the fact that Chrystal had been lingering in her thoughts and sometimes in ways that had her feel pained inside. The thoughts would fade, it had simply been an intense week of their lives, but she still crossed her arms over her chest.</p><p>Taking in the reaction, Cypher's eyes flashed hurt and then angry, and she looked away, nursing her own glass.</p><p>Looking back up, Neo tapped her foot anxiously. <em>"...she missed you. She loves you too."</em></p><p><em>"Shut up. I don't want to hear it." </em>Cypher shot her a hurt and longing glare fierce enough that Neo's heart sank for a few moments, a reaction she hadn't had to any sort of intimidation in years, but there was something in the air when Cypher did it that had her suck in a breath and nod apologetically.</p><p><em> “This...has been the worst month of my life.” </em>Cypher said quietly as she took a very deep drink, finishing her glass and refilling it without asking permission, and Neo didn’t stop her.</p><p>
  <em> “...yeah.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Silent for another few minutes, each of them looking down at their own glass, Cypher tensed, preparing to be hurt and betrayed further. <em> “Did you even know about me? That I existed?” </em></p><p><em> “No.” </em>Neo shook her head. <em> “Not until Chrystal told me. I don’t remember anything about our family or from when I was a kid. Before I was ten, anyway. If I’d known about you, I’d have come found you.” </em></p><p><em> “...me neither. Otherwise I would have come for you too.” </em>Cypher said almost begrudgingly, crossing her arms defensively, Neo doing the exact same thing at the same moment, and both of them scowled at it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “This is going to take some getting used to.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “This is going to take a while to get used to.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Rolling their eyes at the same time, both girls reached for their drinks in unison and then stopped, Neo bursting out into giggles meanwhile Cypher rested her head in her hands. Eventually Cypher cracked a tiny smile as well and shook her head in amusement, her smirk returning as she took another drink.</p><p><em> “Okay. Well. Issues with...a certain butterfly, aside…” </em> Cypher shot Neo an incredibly hurt and confused glare, and Neo shrugged helplessly. <em> “Let’s figure this out.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Yup...Basics first. How old are you?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Eighteen, you?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Eighteen.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Templing her hands in front of her face with her elbows on the table, Cypher narrowed her eyes as the obvious details fell into place. They were twins, which could explain the similar Semblances and...whatever it was allowing them into each other’s heads. And it wasn’t just verbal thoughts they could pick up, if the fact she’d gotten flashes of...her sister with her ex-girlfriend, were any indication.</p><p>They might be able to share memories and feelings.</p><p> </p><p><em> “Okay. I’m going to try something.” </em>Cypher tapped her fingers together, and Neo raised an eyebrow and sat back.</p><p>
  <em> “I know.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Snorting in amusement, Cypher focused on Neo and thought about the night she’d met Chrystal, sitting next to her after doing one of her jobs for Junior. The music in the club, Chrystal’s nervous smile, how much lien Junior had given her for the job. How nervous Chrystal had been to dance with her. The faces and feeling of the other people nearby.</p><p>And Neo got all of it, flashes inside her own head as if she was the one thinking about it, as if she was remembering a movie she had watched, able to be aware of it but the sensations of it were dulled from distance. The sight and sound and feel of Cypher experiencing a more playful and innocent and <em> intact </em>Chrystal had Neo clench her fists and glare at Cypher.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Enough. Just...enough. I get it.” </em>
</p><p>Stopping, Cypher nodded as her experiment was a success. <em> “That’ll make this easier. So, anything you want to know?” </em></p><p><em> “Sure.” </em> Pondering over it for a moment, Neo raised an eyebrow. <em> “So you were one of Junior’s? How’d that start?” </em></p><p>Smirking fondly at the memories, Cypher showed how Junior had walked in on Cypher and Melanie Malachite in the storeroom the first time Cypher had visited his club, and when Cypher had immediately blinked into her vest again and then out into the main club itself at an insanely rapid speed it had him offer her some work as a snatcher immediately, with her able to get in and out of places without a chance of being discovered.</p><p>At the memory, Neo ended up giggling wildly at the look on Junior’s face, and she nodded in amusement and approval. <em> “Fair enough. Whatever works. Okay, your turn. What do you want to know?” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Well...what about you and Roman?” </em>
</p><p>Going still and quiet for a moment, Neo looked down at the table and the mirth she’d gotten from Cypher’s memory vanished, and all it took was a pang of her grief for Cypher to frown and nod in understanding.</p><p>
  <em> “I’m sorry.” </em>
</p><p><em> “Yeah.” </em> Neo straightened up, and prepared to show Cypher the best memories she had of the man growing up. <em> “Me too…” </em></p><p> </p><p>The next hour passed the same way, each of them sharing memories and experiences, unable to <em> exactly </em>catch each other up on who the other one was but they were able to give a general gist. As time went on and memories grew more specific, both of them smirked wider and wider as similarities grew and they had clearly mirrored each other more and more in their lives.</p><p>Both of them ending up criminals, with Cypher attaching to Junior in a similar way that Neo had attached to Roman, but it was far more of a friendship than it was anything familial. They were both lifelong dancers, with a love of ballet. They were both completely gay, without even the slightest interest in men, which they were both surprised by since <em> that </em>rarely happened with twins. Their fighting styles were similar, and Neo was curious to see Cypher’s weapons, which were back at the orphanage. And Cypher had gone through the experience of the orphanage growing up, meanwhile Neo had hesitated before sharing memories of the dark room that she’d spent the first two years of her memory in.</p><p>While she’d initially tried to censor a lot of the details, Cypher had reassured her she didn’t have to, so she’d shown her as much as she herself could stand to remember.</p><p>That had resulted in their drinking picking up a bit for a few glasses, and as they grew progressively drunker they began to go into more detail, asking more random and sporadic questions to flesh out things they were curious about. The similarities grew, having similar tastes in almost everything.</p><p>But not quite.</p><p><em> “Hmm...favourite colour?” </em> Neo grinned, resting her chin on her hand. <em> “Lemme guess, pink?” </em></p><p><em> “White.” </em> Cypher looked almost offended, gesturing down at her pure white outfit. <em> “Yours is definitely pink though.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Well, yeah.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>As the sillier questions faded out, and the heavier mood of alcohol set in, Cypher ended up sitting back in her chair and looking down at the table with a sad frown. <em> “So what are you planning on doing now?” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Hmm?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Now that Vale is gone. What’s next for you?” </em>
</p><p><em> “I don’t even know.” </em> Neo snorted with a shrug. <em> “This was just the first place to come to mind.” </em></p><p><em> “Yeah, same. But...I do know what I want.” </em>With Cypher’s silent snarl, Neo felt as her mood darkened, and a shadow settled into her sister’s eyes that Neo recognised, and she sat up.</p><p>
  <em> “...Delilah.” </em>
</p><p><em> “Damn fucking straight. I’m going to find her.” </em>Cypher’s grip tightened enough in a flash that the glass in her hand shattered, and she swore. Thankfully it had been mostly empty, so nothing spilled, but it cut up her hand anyway and she thumped the table in anger.</p><p><em> “Woah woah, you’re all good.” </em> Neo stood and grabbed a new glass for her, brushing the shards aside to be dealt with later. <em> “...I really am sorry. I didn’t know about you, that you were...or I...” </em></p><p><em> “Don’t. It’s no use thinking about that now.” </em> Cypher shot her a glare even as she scooped up the shards into a neat pile. The glare wasn’t <em> at </em> Neo, it was aimed far away. <em> “But...I have to find her. You know what those girls meant to me. I showed you.” </em></p><p><em> “Yeah...I know. And I want the same thing.” </em> Neo nodded, briefly showing Cypher a flash of some of her interactions with Cinder as her control over Roman grew scarier and scarier, and then a flash of memory fighting Ruby. Her own eyes narrowed into a glare. <em> “I want the same thing. I lost…” </em></p><p><em> “Everything.” </em> Cypher nodded in agreement, filling her new glass with the now almost empty bottle and closing her eyes. <em> “I trusted Delilah. I did. And I thought she…” </em></p><p> </p><p>Tearing up slightly as she thought over it, Cypher wiped the back of her hand over her eyes as the memories she began to broadcast changed tone, turning from nostalgic and fond into grief-filled and agonising, and Neo’s own eyes closed and her chest tightened as she felt it, her own memories starting to match tone, both their minds and hearts feeding off each other and almost forming a loop.</p><p>And then there was the first spark of anger. Neither of them knew who the initial spark had come from, but with the loop it quickly blew into an inferno, raging through both of them and leading to the two of them sitting very still as Cypher glared at the table and Neo staring off at a wall.</p><p>It was almost all-consuming, and eventually Cypher stood up abruptly and began to pace, her hands in her pockets as they normally were when she walked, meanwhile Neo noted that <em> she </em>normally had her hands behind her back.</p><p><em> “But where do we even start?” </em> Cypher snarled internally, shaking her head. <em> “How do either of us even find who we’re looking for?” </em></p><p><em> “I know all of Roman’s contacts, and I can find pretty much anyone, it’s just </em> <b> <em>getting </em> </b> <em> there that’s impossible for me.” </em>Nodding in frustration, Neo crossed her arms and watched her sister pace, and Cypher was in agreement.</p><p>
  <em> “I know all of Junior’s too. It’s getting started that’s hard.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Both of them were lost in their own thoughts, plans considered and then discarded over and over again, both of them having the same way of thinking and approaching problems as their minds went through similar patterns.</p><p>Eventually they both reached the same conclusion, and they locked eyes, each of them raising an eyebrow and a small vicious smirk appearing on both of their faces.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Cinder.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Delilah.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “If they’re working together.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “If they’re working together.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “They know where to find each other.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “They know where to find each other.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p><em> “So we only need to find one.” </em>Neo raised her eyebrows.</p><p><em> “I guess we only need to find one.” </em>Cypher nodded.</p><p> </p><p>Staring at each other quietly as their thoughts synced up and went into unison, Neo stood and made her way over to her sister, the two of them regarding each other for a few moments. Crossing her arms, Neo considered Cypher for a few moments, while Cypher mirrored the movement, but while Neo tapped her finger on her cheek Cypher instead tapped her bottom lip.</p><p>They were thinking the exact same thoughts, they could hear it in each other.</p><p>
  <em> “I’ll help you find Cinder, but I <strong>won’t</strong> help you kill Ruby.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Will you actively stop me?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Thinking over it for a few moments, thinking over her friends and weighing it up, Cypher whispered a silent apology to the little red rose and shook her head. Ruby could handle herself, but she needed this. And she was the only one that could do it.</p><p>
  <em> “Delilah is mine. Ruby is yours. We share Cinder.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Done.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>In unison, they both reached out, and shook hands.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And so begin the time-skips! Otherwise it would be a lot of segments of "And ___ did more walking." or "And ___ did more training."</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Level Headed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As Shina's doubts and insecurities begin to mount up, keeping them to himself and bottling them is doing him no favours as it starts to interact with his Semblance and cause disturbances. Unable to control it, every slip up has a price, and going too far calls to him far too easily just to cope with what he no longer believes he can manage.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p>
  <b> <em>Two Weeks Later</em> </b>
</p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The sound of sword swings sounded throughout the small clearing in the pre-dawn cold, a small distance away from the main campsite so that the others wouldn’t be disturbed. Panting and resting on his blade, Shina squeezed his eyes shut in frustration and to avoid the sweat dripping down his forehead as he straightened back up and went back to his sets, Hornet’s Kiss flashing in his hand, polished and oiled well enough that the hardlight-dust infused steel reflected the stars above and looking as if it was shimmering with inner lights.</p><p>Continuing through his sets like he always did during his shift on watch, he went through each motion with as much discipline and focus as he could. But his muscles had felt strange to him ever since the fight at Beacon, beginning even before his clash with Adam. In fact if he thought back he could place the strange feeling just after he had killed for the first time. It had been swift, and easy, and in the moment he’d been so busy and so surrounded he hadn’t even realised that there was a lethal amount of blood dripping from his blade and splattering his face and armour.</p><p>And he hadn’t had the time to reflect and think about it apart from the brief few minutes of reprieve he’d had in Velvet’s arms before rushing to the next courtyard.</p><p> </p><p>At the thought of his girlfriend, though likely now his <em> ex </em> -girlfriend if Chrystal was right and she’d gone to Vacuo on the other side of the <em> planet </em>, he felt a stab of pain and longing. But he didn’t ever give himself time to wallow and get dragged down into lonely depression, so he went back to his movements and attempted to clear his mind. It didn’t work. He missed her, and Vacuo was dangerous. Team CFVY were extremely capable, better than SKTC were, but...all the same, the world was different now.</p><p>Pyrrha had been the best of all of them, and it hadn’t saved her.</p><p>There were new threats now, of a whole new calabre.</p><p> </p><p>Finishing his fourth set of movements, each one taking over half an hour as he had to repeat each one until he’d done it until he was satisfied, he took a small break and grabbed a towel from a nearby log to wipe his face clean of sweat, and he took a drink from his water canteen. They were reaching another town today, getting ever closer to the port they needed to reach, so they were bravely allowing themselves to be less stingy with resources like food and water.</p><p>Not so much that they’d risk themselves if the town didn’t have any available, but it was a splurge.</p><p>Morale had been increasingly low, so he had decided they needed it.</p><p>Too many nights with nothing to do but sit around the campfire and talk to each other with increasing loops of doubt and insecurity. Grief was eating away at all of them, and the exertion of walking all day could only vent so much of that heavy energy. The occasional fight helped, against both Grimm and also the occasional group of bandits, but that just posed new problems when it happened.</p><p>The Grimm were fine, but the clashes with bandits and small clusters of White Fang were causing serious concerns. Three of them believed Chrystal to be the main concern, with her new seeming disregard for life and her willingness to fight to kill, and the fact she was getting quieter because of it.</p><p>Her simmering bitterness was becoming a problem as well, as if she was holding the fact she had to kill against them, or at least holding it against them that she found killing easier than they did.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever she’d spoken to Qrow Branwen about in private, a conversation she’d deliberately remained secretive about despite prodding, had only made her more cynical. While she hadn’t had any of her episodes <em> yet </em>, she was bottling, and that was a time bomb waiting to go off at the worst possible moment. Not even he could get through to her, and it was beginning to frustrate him greatly. And, if he was honest, it hurt for her to lock him out in a time like this.</p><p>Letting out a sigh, he sank down onto the log and laid his sword over his lap as he thought. As team leader it was his job to keep them focused and to help their morale stay high, but he had no idea how to go about it considering his own doubts and concerns.</p><p>Specifically about himself.</p><p> </p><p>While the other three believed Chrystal to be the main concern, and outwardly he’d expressed neutrality, internally he knew <em> he </em>might be a problem.</p><p>Raising his fist in front of his eyes and clenching it, he felt his Semblance ripple underneath the surface and he flinched. Whilever he was awake these days, the First Cut was always trying to open itself, as if it were a gate holding back pressure. From the moment he woke up for his shift on the dawn watch, to the moment he fell asleep, he could feel it on the edge of his mind, ever since the fight with Adam.</p><p>Adam…</p><p>His mind flashed with memories of their fight and a snarl left his lips which immediately had him blink in surprise and flinch away from his own reaction, putting his hand back down on his blade. That sort of aggression wasn’t like him, not anymore, not since he’d put the work in to temper himself after his Semblance awakened the first time. It responded to rage, frustration, despair, and hatred, that had been obvious from the first day.</p><p>But his Semblance also reacted as a defensive measure, to protect him from both physical threats, but also emotional and mental ones, like in Ozpin’s office when the General had started to push too far.</p><p> </p><p>Hate and anger weren’t in his personality, but he found himself unnaturally <em> hating </em>Adam, and his Semblance strained against his aura even at the thought of him, or the White Fang in general. </p><p>It didn’t feel right.</p><p> </p><p>Standing again, he flourished his blade in his hand to focus, and he readied himself for his fifth set out of six. He’d be done in time to wake the others for the day, but only if he didn’t take too many breaks, and he never liked stopping early. Beginning the movements, he felt the strain from his cuts continue to grow as his thoughts lingered on the events of Beacon. The grief he felt at the loss of Pyrrha was potent and powerful and agonising, and one he hadn’t had the time to properly process.</p><p>While they hadn’t been excellent friends, he’d wanted to be, and so had she. But they’d just hadn’t found the time yet.</p><p>It felt like the loss of something larger than it was, when Pyrrha died. She was his friend, and someone he respected just as much as he respected Chrystal and Ozpin.</p><p>And if he’d been there with her, the two of them working together, she might have gotten out of Beacon alive.</p><p> </p><p>At that thought, the first cut opened up beneath his skin and his next slash from his sequence caused a slight gust of wind from the extra force behind it, and he closed his eyes. Even in the weeks since Beacon his adjustment to the cuts had grown far better. Real life experience had forced it faster than training had, and now the first two cuts barely drained him or damaged him at all.</p><p>With access to the fifth alongside Pyrrha, they could have overcome anything.</p><p>And if both himself and Chrystal had been with Kylar and Tacita when they confronted Cinder, maybe Pyrrha would never have had to fight Cinder at all.</p><p> </p><p>It was a failure on his part. As far as he was concerned, she died because of him.</p><p> </p><p>Kylar and Tacita had been savaged because he had allowed himself and Chrystal to be distracted. And Chrystal had been left stranded in the ruins of a city, forced to kill just to escape, because he’d given into the instinct and fought Adam. Knowing Chrystal had still been nearby, he could have found her and evacuated with her easily enough and they would have escaped without the injuries they’d suffered. He had failed.</p><p>Allowing the second cut to open, his next slash slightly splintered a nearby tree from the concussive wave of air of his swing, his speed accelerated but his raw strength not yet boosted until the third. That had changed too, the third cut wasn’t forced anymore.</p><p>Instead he felt it too, underneath the surface. Writhing and trying to get out.</p><p> </p><p>Straining, he forced himself to calm down, but the sad and distraught silver eyes of Ruby Rose flashed into his mind, from when he had visited her. Those agonised and desperate eyes.</p><p>She had every intention of getting into contact with the remaining members of Team JNPR and potentially heading to Haven, and if his timetable was right Ruby had hoped to leave in around three weeks from the current day, having them two months behind SKTC.</p><p>If SKTC completed their mission in time and found the Maiden to bring her to Haven (if they didn’t decide to keep her away from the fight for her safety), there was every chance they could reunite with Ruby and the others and work together. They could keep each other safe.</p><p>They had to.</p><p>Now that Team RWBY was broken up and Ruby was running out of people.</p><p> </p><p>At the thought of what Chrystal had told them of Blake and Yang, Shina’s eyes flashed with the gold in them pulsing, the third cut opening just enough that the next swing of his sequence properly splintered the nearest tree with a loud crack that sent shards of wood scattering across the clearing, and it was loud and violent enough to snap him out of it.</p><p>Dropping his sword to the ground, Shina sank to his knees and closed his eyes, his breath coming in heavy gasps as his right arm hurt from the swing, but his aura was already healing the damaged muscles and shoulder joint. During the Vytal Tournament, he could manage maybe three sword bursts at the most during the third cut before he was too incapacitated to fight anymore. Now he could manage around, seven and still have just enough aura to power down and begin healing immediately.</p><p>True combat experience was forcing his growth leagues faster than safe training had.</p><p>But it still wasn’t enough. He wasn’t strong enough. Wasn’t smart enough.</p><p>Team SKTC had failed to protect Beacon, failed to protect their headmaster or eliminate their threats. Failed to protect their friends. Failed to protect <em> each other. </em></p><p>And that was on him.</p><p> </p><p>Coughing out a dry rasp, he put his hands on the ground while on his knees and slumped downwards slightly as the three cuts ebbed and pulsed underneath his skin, not causing any damage due to his lack of movement but pulsing within his aura all the same.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, letting the freezing chill of the coming winter soak into his tired muscles and joints, the first snowfall having hit two days ago, but the numbing cold was relieving and soothing even as it hurt the exposed skin of his face once his blood had stopped pounding </p><p>Giving into his darker thoughts, the weight of grief and guilt weighing on his chest, he raised his hand to look at it and rolled up his sleeve to expose his entire arm, before having to push only slightly and open the fourth cut, the pulsing pressure and weight of it agonising on his mind from the strain as he watched the small black tendrils appear underneath the skin of his hand and arm, like a corruption.</p><p>He’d only let himself do this a few times, when he knew the others weren’t watching to worry or judge him or reprimand him, but he needed to understand. Looking at the thin tendrils underneath his paling skin, he clenched his fist tightly and then unclenched it, watching the tendrils interact with his muscles to fill them with the boosted strength.</p><p>Just like in his fight with Adam, he felt the urge to go even further powerful on his mind, but with the times he had practiced this exposure it had gotten easier to resist. But it was still there.</p><p>His semblance <em> called </em> to him to use it. Like being at a bar and your empty glass in front of you somehow tempting you to get a refill. That strange power of a temptation outside of yourself, and it whispered to him. It was like his Semblance was talking directly to his aura, and <em> he </em>was being pressured into it.</p><p>Closing his eyes, he forced the cuts closed one by one until he felt the wave of exhaustion from their absence, his aura and body finally acknowledging the strain and damage caused by them and immediately getting to proper work healing and rejuvenating him.</p><p>Even years after awakening it, he still didn’t understand his Semblance. Neither of his parents had helped him, in fact his father had seemed actively repelled by the mention or sight of it, so it had been up to him until he’d met Professor Firenei and she’d tried to help him as best as she could. Shina hoped she had survived and he could see her again.</p><p>He could really use her advice right about now.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t even know what he was.</p><p> </p><p>Pulling his sleeve back down, he stood and grabbed his sword as he did so, absently wiping it clean of mud with a rag and then sliding it back into its sheath.</p><p>Somehow he’d become aware of the limits of his Semblance once he had reached the second stage of it. There were twelve. Twelve stages he could push his body and his mind to, at the cost of his health and potentially even his life, and right now he could only reach five. He’d seen the power of it, <em> felt </em>the power of it, and experienced the cost. An opponent as strong as Adam would have slaughtered him otherwise, the man had adjusted and acclimated to the first four cuts with only a few swings, and Shina had only ‘tied’ with the man because the fifth cut had caught him by surprise.</p><p>Without that new upper limit, he’d be dead. And he’d deserve it for his reckless bloodlust.</p><p> </p><p>Making his way back to their small campsite, he took a look at his three friends, the teammates he was responsible for, and he put his sword down near his bedroll. They didn’t have the luxury to take tents with them, lacking the way of carrying the pieces, so despite the frost they were stuck sleeping in bedrolls and trusting their auras to keep the worst of the cold at bay.</p><p>Once they left Sanus and landed on Anima things would be different, as they’d leave snow behind and instead enter an environment of winter storms and rain. The cold would be just as intense, but the actual weather was a bit more manageable. Rain was easier to protect from than frost could be.</p><p>Anima was going to be dangerous, and he had to get them through it alive. Once they reached Ywitawa in around five weeks they could establish a small base of operations and get to work properly, it was apparently a decently sized enough town that there were a couple of good taverns, according to the information Qrow had given Chrystal, so that was promising instead of having to camp in the rain every night for the months it would potentially take to find the Spring Maiden if she was truly missing instead of just radio silent.</p><p>How could they find one girl in a forest as large as Mistral?</p><p>What made him think he could do this? It could get his friends <em> killed. </em></p><p>Maybe Ozpin was wrong. And the man was going to wait until they were properly trained anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Shina sat on his bedroll near the still crackling fire and put his head in his hands, clenching his eyes shut as the noise of the doubts and guilt rattled around in his head.</p><p> </p><p>It could have been moments later, it could have been an hour, but a pair of arms wrapped around him and pulled him close, an affectionate kiss placed on the side of his head as he recognised the warmth of his best friend.</p><p>“I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’m here.” Chrystal whispered to him with her lips still placed against the side of his head, pulling him closer and resting her forehead against his temple but otherwise allowing him to stay curled up and rigid. “I’m here.”</p><p>“That’s part of the problem.”</p><p>“Mm?”</p><p>“Chrystal, I...you...if I had…”</p><p>“No.” Chrystal shook her head, sighing in a mixture of guilt and determination as she sat up slightly and turned to face him, and he looked up to meet her eyes. “What happened to me was <em> not </em>your fault. You were hurt too.”</p><p>“But they found me, if I’d stayed closer to you, they might have…” He trailed off, the remaining fading black tendrils in his eyes from the fourth cut pulsed in response to his guilt, and it made Chrystal’s chest ache</p><p> </p><p>Biting her lip, Chrystal looked down, a lump of guilt paling her skin, and she placed her hands on her knees while still close enough her legs were brushing his. She’d been unfair to the others, and she knew it, but for some reason she couldn’t stop.</p><p>But it wasn’t the time to talk about it.</p><p>So she shuffled over again and placed her forehead against his, affectionate and close to the person she trusted most in the whole world, and he leant into the touch as well. They were siblings in everything but blood, and closer than that in a thousand ways that couldn’t be put into words, and gold eyes met brown as she gave him as reassuring a look as possible.</p><p> </p><p>“We can do this. And we can do it together. It wasn’t your fault. They wouldn’t blame you for what happened to them either.”</p><p>“I don’t want to get any of you killed.”</p><p>“You won’t.”</p><p>“We can’t be absolutely certain of that.”</p><p>“Maybe not.” Chrystal conceded, before thinning her lips. “But we can do our best. And our best is...pretty good.”</p><p> </p><p>Staying quiet for a few moments, Shina nodded in an attempt to end the topic, and she let him. Raising his hand to look at the rapidly fading tendrils, he noticed as she saw them too, but she didn’t say anything, instead letting him stare at his own skin.</p><p> </p><p>“Something’s wrong with me.” He whispered, and she frowned in concern.</p><p>“How so?”</p><p>“It’s just...something. In me. Ever since...”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, Chrystal tentatively reached out and took his hand in both of hers, stroking it gently as she peered at it closely and studied the tendrils that were almost entirely invisible again. Scrunching up her mouth slightly, she glanced up at him.</p><p>“We’ve both been pushed into the deep end, Wasp. What’s been going on with it?”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing, Shina hesitated. How could he tell her? How could he put it into words?</p><p>Chrystal was strong, back at Beacon he’d needed to go up to the second cut in order to land hits on her, and ever since returning from Beacon she was...far stronger. Something had changed in her, and any gap that had once been in her offense (of which there had been many) was gone. They’d all seen her fight numerous times since setting out on the road, against all manner of dangers. She was a new threat now, and from Shina’s sharp eyes he could tell she was still figuring out and testing just how high her new limits had risen.</p><p>For now, the power gap between them had widened, and silently they had both known it.</p><p>But if he used his Semblance, he was stronger. Stronger than any of the others.</p><p>With the third cut he was Chrystal’s equal again, at least he was willing to think so considering he had never used it against her.</p><p>And with the Fourth? He couldn’t imagine.</p><p>But he wanted to. And that was the problem.</p><p> </p><p>They were both in the deep end, and he remembered how the fifth cut had felt. No pain, no pressure, no fear, just focus and speed and power. He’d felt <em> invincible </em>, like an unstoppable force that could tear down a world. Everything had been destroyable, and it had felt like it should all turn to ash. It was a blessing no-one else had been around. They were both thrown into the deep end, and he knew they were handling it differently.</p><p>Chrystal was adjusting to the depths, and trying not to resent the others for the fact that she’d had to.</p><p>Meanwhile Shina wanted to swim even deeper. And knowing what she might be going through, there was no way in hell he could admit it to her.</p><p>It would be an insult to her.</p><p>So he shook his head with a small and tired smile.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s just wearing me thin, is all.”</p><p> </p><p>She stared at him for a few moments, because he was never able to lie to her just like she was never able to lie to him, but they’d come to a silent agreement long ago that if either of them felt the need to bother lying to the other, it was something serious enough that it should be respected. Otherwise they’d never do it.</p><p>So she left it alone, nodding and then turning to the fire to stoke it back to life, both of them suddenly aware of the rapidly lowering temperature for the early-morning frost. Shuffling up next to her closer, he reached back to his bedroll and unzipped it so it was a blanket, and wrapped it around them both, causing her to smile and cuddle into him.</p><p> </p><p>“We reach the port in less than a week. Six days maybe, according to Tacita.” Chrystal murmured, a tremor of nervousness in her voice that was rare enough that Shina wrapped an arm around her protectively.</p><p>“Yep. Then we’re in the danger zone. It’s been a smooth trip so far.” He nodded, looking up at the sky and taking in the clouds that were starting to form and block out the stars, preparing for the day’s frost as always. “We should get moving soon. So that we stay warm.”</p><p>Nodding in agreement, Chrystal didn’t otherwise move, still looking into the fire and resting her head on Shina’s shoulder. “...can we stay like this a bit longer though? Just a bit longer.”</p><p>Pressing a kiss to the top of her head softly, Shina nodded and looked into the fire himself, watching it crackle and listening to the steady breathing of his two sleeping friends and the anxious breathing of the one pressed into his side. The sun slowly began its ascension into the sky, the black clouds turning to grey from the light, and Shina nudged Chrystal to get her moving. The two of them couldn’t stay wallowing and staring into the flames all day, no matter how much they might want to.</p><p>Six days more of travel and they’d be on the ship to Anima, and the real fight would begin.</p><p>Then they would experience the deep end for real, and both of them knew it was coming. So they both hesitated to rise and wake the others, but they had to.</p><p>With barely any words as they each ate a quick breakfast and packed up camp, the four of them got back onto the road. If everything went well, they’d be able to sleep in a tavern that night as they passed through a village.</p><p>That was motivation enough. They were running out of everything else that had been keeping them going.</p><p>And as he looked around at the hollow and shadowed eyes of his friends, Shina felt it in his chest that if they ground to a stop right now they might never move again.</p><p>So he pressed on.</p><p> </p><p>No matter how much doubt he was experiencing of his own, he wasn’t allowed to stop.</p><p>So he wouldn’t. He never did.</p><p>It had been his biggest flaw, his relentless reckless pushing, and in many ways it still was and his fight against Adam had proven it. But right now he knew his greatest failing might just keep them alive.</p><p> </p><p>And it scared him to death.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Tacita saw it first, and it didn’t surprise any of them, the girl staggering to a halt along the road as soon as the village came into view on the edge of her Semblance. Wordlessly she grabbed Kylar by the sleeve and dragged him off the road and into the foliage, Chrystal and Shina immediately following without hesitation, the four of them crouching down in the trees and bushes.</p><p> </p><p>Shaking her head with eyes squeezed shut, Tacita let out a steady breath and spoke in a nervous whisper.</p><p>“It’s gone.”</p><p>“...<em> what? </em>” Chrystal blinked, resisting the urge to peek back onto the road and in the direction, but the look on Tacita’s face held her stil.</p><p>“Smoke. And the only people walking around on the edge…”</p><p>“It was raided.” Shina let out a breath and looked down, his hand going back to rest on the hilt of his blade. “How many?”</p><p>“I’m not close enough...hang on.”</p><p> </p><p>Relaxing her expression so that her eyes were still closed but she was focused, Tacita briefly glowed with her aura as she reached into her Semblance and expanded her sight to its maximum range in the direction of the village, able to see most of it even as it drained her aura at a steady rate.</p><p>The village had been raided and ransacked, but the group of bandits themselves weren’t particularly large, and there appeared to be villagers still alive but simply subjugated. A dozen and a half bandits maybe, poorly armed.</p><p>Coming back to herself, she opened her eyes and looked to the others.</p><p> </p><p>“There are survivors, but they’re scared. Fourteen hostiles, maybe more if there are others on the far side of town.”</p><p> </p><p>The three of them looked to Shina as their team leader thought, his face serious and his eyes far away, and they all knew what he was considering. Their mission was important and they were in a hurry, and it was unnecessary danger, but they were Huntsmen. It was their duty to protect the innocent, and if there were survivors it was their job and duty to free them and deal with their captors.</p><p>They’d trust his decision, and all of their eyes flashed and steeled when Shina nodded and stood, drawing his blade as quietly as he could, the others doing the same.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s the plan?” Kylar spun the chambers of his new and upgraded Myriadisca, satisfied that each one was properly loaded, and Shina tapped his fingers on the steel of his blade.</p><p>“We can’t go charging into town wildly, they’ll just kill the hostages. We need to get inside properly.”</p><p>“Stealth?” Chrystal raised her eyebrows, and Shina nodded thoughtfully.</p><p>“Just you and Tacita on stealth, Kylar and I are just going to walk in.”</p><p>All three of them blinked at Shina for a moment, before Kylar nodded in understanding and gave a small smile. “We going to negotiate?”</p><p>“If they realise we’re Huntsmen, they’ll hesitate to go all out. And they’ve got to have a leader, who might be reasonable.”</p><p> </p><p>Shrugging in agreement and understanding, Kylar adjusted his grip on his staff thoughtfully and nodded. “Diplomacy.”</p><p>“Perhaps. This is hostage rescue, this isn’t a brawl.” Shina gave each of them a stern look, and Chrystal nodded in agreement, meanwhile Tacita and Kylar looked pensive until Tacita agreed as well, with Kylar trusting Shina from the start.</p><p> </p><p>With a plan in mind, Tacita and Chrystal vanished into the trees, with Chrystal able to get into the village unseen without any trouble meanwhile Tacita could find a good vantage point at a far further range than enemies might expect if she climbed up the right tree and perched properly, which she easily managed to do so. Giving their teammates a couple of minutes to get into comfortable positions, Shina and Kylar shrugged at each other, and Kylar quickly absorbed a gravity crystal to keep at the ready while Shina decided to bravely sheath his blade for the two of them to begin to stroll casually towards the town.</p><p>Even when some of the thugs near the edge of town noticed them, and it was clear they were noticed in return, the lack of any panic or hostility from the pair of Huntsmen had the thugs strangely disarmed, with no idea how to react to a pair of teenagers who didn’t seem to have any fear or ill intent.</p><p>But one of them stepped forward all the same, three of his buddies backing up behind him, and a barbed and serrated machete was raised in their direction.</p><p> </p><p>“Easy there, boys. Probably best to make your way elsewhere, unless you want to either drop dead here or limp away with empty bags.”</p><p>“Don’t mind us, simply making our way through.” Shina shrugged at the man, but casually closed the distance so he was a few paces away, his casual demeanour enough to make the man uneasy. “But we did notice what you lot are up to. Who’s your boss?”</p><p>“I...look kid, don’t poke for trouble you don’t want. You’re clearly Beacon survivors so in consideration we’ll give you a chance to turn around, but…” The man raised his machete more aggressively, and his three friends stepped up as well, and in response Shina put his hands into his pockets while Kylar casually began to prepare a dust cast in case he needed it.</p><p>“Easy, chief. We just care about you lot letting the people who live here go free.” Shina raised his eyebrows.</p><p> </p><p>When one of the three men that had been waiting back saw that as a threat and made a move, Shina easily ducked out of the way of a savage swing from a mace before sweeping his legs out from under him, taking his hands from his pocket in order to grab the man’s wrist and twist it so he dropped his weapon, and a fist to the side of his head knocked him out.</p><p>The three others all hesitated at how quick it had been, and one of the three men looked at Shina in a new light and his eyes widened, and almost a glimmer of recognition went through him. He’d watched the tournament, and he recognised Shina, so he lowered his weapon.</p><p>“Y..yeah. Tempei is the one to talk to.” The man stammered, and the man who had been doing the talking so far responded to his partner’s obvious nervousness and lowered his own weapon. The stammering man continued. “Uhh...you…let’s not go wild. I’m sure she and you can work something out?”</p><p>The man’s nerves were contagious, and his two friends glanced at him suspiciously before realising he was serious, and they regarded Shina and Kylar in a cautious new light.</p><p>“Thanks friend.” Shina gave a casual smile and simply walked past, Kylar giving a wink to the three men and also making it clear with the look he knew they’d be following just behind, raising his eyebrows. “Lead the way. Raiding is one thing, keeping hostages is another.”</p><p> </p><p>The stammering man walked slightly forward and gave a hesitant and nervous look, before starting to lead the way. As the entourage walked into town, Shina and Kylar still completely relaxed, the rest of the gang noticed them curiously and began to group in, following in curiosity as their escort led them into the center of town, and quickly jogging into a building that had clearly been a tavern.</p><p>Glancing around, Shina made sure to give smiles to each of the shaking and terrified civilians that were still too scared to try anything despite the distraction, having being hostages for who knew how many days, and a couple recognised him and Kylar from the tournament coverage and small ebbs of hope went through their eyes.</p><p>A few moments later there was the sound of shouting from inside the tavern, then a thump, and when a younger woman and two men stepped out, the man who had led Shina and Kylar in stumbled out behind them with a clearly broken nose that he was holding. The girl looked frustrated but also curious, and when she saw Shina and Kylar her eyebrows rose high.</p><p>Meanwhile Shina stiffened. Because he knew her. Or at the very least recognised her.</p><p>And the spiked and segmented whip in her hands was distinguishable on its own. She was from Vale, just a small-time thug that all the other gangs found to be a nuisance. Clearly she’d seized an opportunity.</p><p>The problem was, while she wasn’t a formal Huntress he knew she did have an aura. That almost always meant they’d be confident, and from the look in her eyes it was the same with her.</p><p> </p><p>Of the two men behind her, neither of them were identifiable, but he wasn’t so willing to disregard them quickly, but he knew that Tacita would keep them in mind so that <em> he </em>could focus on the girl and Kylar could keep the smaller thugs in mind. Crowd control was Kylar’s specialty, especially when directly fighting alongside Shina, meanwhile Tacita always picked the best targets.</p><p>The two of them just had to trust Tacita’s aim.</p><p>Shina wasn’t fooling himself, there was no version of this where he talked the girl into releasing hostages. That just wasn’t how over-confident bandit thugs operated. So despite the casual and disarming smile on his face and his casual stance, he was subconsciously very aware of the weight of his blade on his back.</p><p> </p><p>“So, I reckon I recognise you boys.” The girl started, putting her hands on her hips as she paused a strategic distance from the pair. Close enough she could talk easily, but far enough that her whip was in range but his sword wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Internally, he smirked in approval. Good instinct.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re a long way from Beacon, lads.” She gave a deceptively friendly smile, and her eyes flicked up and down Shina. “What brings you so bravely east?”</p><p>“Hoping to get on a ship and get the fuck out of this country before the snows make everything even <em> more </em>awful.” Shina laughed, and she chuckled in agreement. “You’re a long way from home too. Tempei, right?”</p><p>“That’s me. Now what brings you wandering into our business while we work? Confident move.”</p><p>“We’re still Huntsmen even without an academy, and you’ve got hostages.” Shina sighed, crossing his arms and fixing her with a stern look.</p><p>“I wouldn’t call them ‘hostages’, they’re merely going to help us get through the winter while we’re guests in their home.” Tempei shrugged, but her fingers drummed on the handle of her whip all the same, and his hand twitched at his side.</p><p> </p><p>There was a ripple of anxiety through the crowd, and hands tightened on weapons, but she held a hand up to her men to stop any movement, and gave Shina and Kylar a curious look.</p><p>“Winter’s going to be savage, and no-one on the road is going to survive it if we’re living on berries and rabbits.”</p><p>“There are asylum and refugee efforts back closer to Beacon, this wasn’t your only option, Tempei.”</p><p>“Just the best one. And the most effective. We’re done letting the same people who let our home burn to the ground pick and decide who gets rations and who gets to starve.” Tempei snarled, and her whip unwravelled down at her side. Another ripple of anxiety went through the crowd, and Shina sighed.</p><p>“Sadly, I can understand that. But this village can’t sustain so many of you. You killed people to make room for your rations. <em> You </em>decided who eats and who dies too.” Shina’s hand twitched again, and Kylar watched his skin pale slightly as an ebb of fury went through his team leader’s eyes and a Cut clearly opened.</p><p>“<em> Don’t </em>compare us to them.” Tempei snarled, and a yellow aura crackled along her skin in response to her anger. “This is just how things are, at least we won’t pretend it’s justice or righteous.”</p><p> </p><p>Behind Shina, Kylar slowly began to compress the gravity energy held inside of his aura into a particular shape, aware of the crowd of thugs around them that were getting increasingly agitated as the debate continued. Feeling it happening behind him, Shina glanced over his shoulder slightly.</p><p>“You got something ready?”</p><p> </p><p>After a moment to finish shaping it, Kylar nodded, and Shina looked to Tempei again and let out a sigh as he paled even further. Whatever the pair were planning, Tempei wasn’t going to let them kick things off on their terms, and with a bare flick of her wrist her whip was snapping towards Shina with savagely serrated segments. While Delilah’s whips were designed to wrap around opponents and dig into them so she could pull them in, Tempei’s whip was a slicing weapon, and it was only due to the cuts that Shina could draw his blade in time and knock the tip away with a single smooth movement of his own arm almost too fast to see.</p><p>The moment there was the sound of metal against metal, Kylar brought the gravity dust into his hand and slammed his hand down onto the ground, the burst of gravity bursting outwards like a wave that knocked back everyone around them except for the two boys who had braced for it, but Tempei also kept her feet with a bare stumble as Shina closed distance with her.</p><p>Meanwhile the distance it had bought them only lasted a free moments before the grunts were back on their feet and recovering, and Kylar spun his staff in his hands, nodding in satisfaction when one of the two better armed men went down with an arrow in the chest while the other took a bullet in the side of the head from a well-hidden Chrystal who emerged as if out of nowhere.</p><p> </p><p>The odds were a worry, but the four of them had practice and experience under their belts now, which had started the night of Beacon and had only grown in fights against bandits since, though not to quite this number.</p><p>But as Chrystal quickly cut through a number of them to get to Kylar’s side so he wasn’t surrounded, each of them having each other’s back, there was a feeling of security about it.</p><p>A haunting sense of familiarity as they barely held back, only holding back enough out of concern for civilian life.</p><p>Tacita didn’t cluster her shots, letting Chrystal and Kylar deal the most damage, she picked off any grunts who tried to fight at range, making sure the brunt of the fighting was in melee.</p><p> </p><p>But a small space had cleared around Shina and Tempei, the girl savagely and scarily fast with her whip who had no regard for collateral damage, whether it be civilians or her own men, and as her frustration at Shina grew she grew more vicious. Meanwhile Shina was having trouble getting close, even despite his enhanced speed, with whips being a painfully hard weapon to navigate around if the wielder was skilled.</p><p>And Tempei definitely was.</p><p>Taking scratches along his aura that caused small crackles that were going to add up eventually, Shina lost his patience, and when Tempei flicked her whip towards him next he used his temporarily boosted reflexes to catch the tip of it. It sliced into his hand viciously, but he was able to yank with all of his strength and draw Tempei flying towards him so he could slam his blade into her, with her aura sparking viciously for the first time in the fight, and she was sent flying back.</p><p>Growling, the woman glared at him, and with a flash of aura in her eyes her whip was suddenly strangely blurry, as if it was vibrating at an extremely high speed. Bringing it around, she sent it flicking towards him again, and when he deflected it and it snapped he was sent stumbling black as almost a shockwave came from the sheer volume of the snap, loud enough it hurt his ears and had him clench his jaw.</p><p>It continued, every crack of her whip was painfully loud, the volume powerful enough it sent off small pulses in the air and loud enough it was dizzying. With his anger growing, Shina brought his blade up on the defensive and glared murder at her, and when she raised her eyebrow in cocky frustration he narrowed his eyes and, with a crack of his neck, the third cut unlocked as it pulsed and pushed within his blood and aura. Cautious as she watched him pale further, she sent her whip towards him, but when he swung his blade the normal concussive wave of air fired off and blew the whip away before smashing into Tempei as well and knocking her back, and Shina had already closed the distance by the time she had recovered, causing a clash that had her stumbling back.</p><p>Raising her free hand, she snapped her fingers and caused enough loud crack that had him flinch and have to shake his head, and she created enough space to send her whip towards him again, only for him to repeat the move from earlier.</p><p> </p><p>The fight continued that way, both of them only half-noticing the damage to the buildings nearby from the combination of sonic booms from <em> her </em> Semblance and the air waves from <em> his, </em>and his impatience grew even further. Underneath his aura, inside of his skin, he could feel the push, the temptation to go further and get this over and done with. But he squeezed his eyes shut and pushed it away with a growl, before focusing again.</p><p>Across the town square, Kylar quickly pressed his hand into Chrystal’s back to infuse her with lightning dust to make her even faster before unleashing her onto those who were remaining, grunting as he took a shot in the back and spinning his staff around to slam it into the stomach of his attacker, and the combusting fire dust sent the man flying back and crashing into a wall just in time for the wall to explode from a stray air blast from Shina across the square.</p><p>Eyes widening, Kylar glanced over and watched as the fight between Shina and Tempei grew more vicious and intense, with structural damage cracking and appearing with complete disregard for it. Shina was normally the most focused and finessed out of all of them except for Tacita, he had to be because of his Semblance.</p><p>But that seemed to be missing.</p><p> </p><p>Turning to where Chrystal had just cleared room for herself, Kylar called out to her.</p><p>“Start getting civilians out of here, as far away from that fight as possible. We don’t know where those blasts are going to go!”</p><p>Glancing over at him with a frown, Chrystal nodded, having considered the very same thing, and she left Kylar to the few remaining thugs and began to dart around, grabbing cowering and hiding civilians and rapidly pulling them around and out of range, hiding them behind stronger walls and in covered areas at a rapid speed, while Tacita covered her.</p><p> </p><p>Then Kylar and Chrystal froze as the town seemed to go very, very cold.</p><p> </p><p>Feeling the air around him seem to go still, Kylar glanced over to the fight between Shina and Tempei, and his eyes widened as he watched a panting and glaring Shina slowly form black tendrils under his skin as he went even paler, a wild and uncontrollable look in his eyes that had the gold vibrantly standing out even from the distance between the two.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh god…” Kylar gulped, but was distracted by being attacked and immediately had to go back to defending himself.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Shina’s vision tunnelled in as his self-control and discipline slipped just enough, pushed just an inch too far, and the fourth cut crawled open. And unlike the controlled release in his hand before dawn, this time it sank into his head and covered his skin like a faint spiderweb, and the gold in his eyes ebbed while the white darkened. Across from him, Tempei flinched and took a step back, the cold stillness in the air having great sparks of panic and anxiety go through her gut.</p><p>Bringing his blade up and around, Shina seemed to vanish, closing the distance and a large slice of his sword slammed into her gut and shattered her aura, the edge biting deep into her torso, and as he followed through with it the wave from the impact caused the stonework underneath their feet to crack, and her body was sent sprawling across the town square. Crashing onto the ground, she coughed up a mouthful of blood as the gash in her torso ripped open wider, her sliced intestines and stomach hemorrhaging violently into her lungs.</p><p>Looking over at her some distance away, Shina didn’t even bother close the distance, he simply shook his head in cold satisfaction and brought his blade up, and with a vicious swing he sent an air wave for her that cracked the stonework beneath her, and what remained of her body almost burst apart from the impact, making her unrecognisable as almost nothing was left intact. The wave kept going, and a building across the square took the damage, the roof crashing in and the wooden wall splintering violently.</p><p>Flourishing his blade to get her blood from it, Shina glanced around coldly and wildly, looking for whoever might be next. The pressure in his head continued to grow, and without his noticing the tendrils along his skin grew darker and began to crawl up towards his head, creeping their way up his neck.</p><p>Two thugs near him practically shattered as he closed the distance, his sword cutting clean through one’s spine and then continuing upwards to slice the next man’s torso in two from waist to shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Shina! Enough!”</p><p> </p><p>The voice had him glance over to the other side of the courtyard, where Kylar was staring at him with a firm and worried look, his staff behind him and one hand raised placatingly. Looking around at the carnage around him, Shina could hear signs of life, of movement. The groaning of the injured. As the tendrils finally crawled the rest of the way up his neck and onto his face, he shook his head. The job wasn’t done.</p><p>Without his control or his true consent, the fifth cut once again slithered open, and all hope of reason swept from his mind.</p><p>In only a few moments, anyone who wasn’t one of his friends who had been alive in the courtyard was dead, a single massive swing of his blade having sent enough force out to crunch bones and crack buildings, and the tendrils continued to grow darker.</p><p>It’s not so much that his vision was fuzzy as much as it was simply focused on one thing and one thing only, with everything else faded away and utterly irrelevant to his mind.</p><p> </p><p>Any heartbeat he could detect, had to go. And without him knowing, he had become indiscriminate, seemingly no longer able to discern between thug and civilian. He didn’t realise anything was wrong until he was standing over another living thing and bringing his blade down, only for it to be caught on two more and spun away. Turning around from where he’d been deflected, he stared into the stern but scared eyes of Chrystal standing between him and the cowering civilians who scampered away.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning coldly and tilting his head at her, he blinked slowly.</p><p> </p><p>“Shina...come <em> back </em>to us.” Chrystal kept her voice stern and level, but she was breathing quick breaths.</p><p>Shina looked...inhuman. The tendrils were thick and dark, and there was almost no white left in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>While she did say the words, and they registered, it was as if they didn’t mean anything or as if he didn’t understand the language, as she saw him merely tilt his head again curiously before the gold in his eyes pulsed, and her reflexes screamed at her to twist out of the way, the tip of his blade almost scratching her armour as he swung. His blade smashed into her block, and the force was enough she was sent flying backwards and twisting in the air.</p><p>“<em> Fuck… </em>” Chrystal gasped, somersaulting back into the center of the courtyard, with Tacita and Kylar joining her, and Shina across from them. “Oh fuck. Guys?”</p><p>“I...I’ve got nothing.” Sucking in a breath, Kylar anxiously spun the top chamber of his staff as Shina seemed to just be staring at the three of them, registering their existence but not seeming to recognise who they were.</p><p>“How do-” Chrystal was cut off as she had to violently shove Kylar out of the way and bring her blades up to spin Shina away again as the mindless man closed the distance, and she pushed Tacita away as well, forced to defend and deflect again. “ <b><em>Shina!</em></b> ”</p><p> </p><p>Deflecting his blade away, she drove her foot into his stomach, doubling him over only to have to spin away violently as he recovered far faster than he’d ever been able to for a counterattack. Again his blade smashed into her block, and she was sent flying across the square and into the wall of a damaged building, her aura sparking as the breath was driven out of her and the wood splintered under the impact. Coughing out a wheeze, she spat out some blood and stumbled her way back into the square properly, breathing heavily.</p><p>Bouncing forward a few paces, she took in the once again standing still Shina. With Kylar on one side, Tacita on the other, and his attention on her, they stood around him in a triangle as he turned slowly to each of them as if trying to decide.</p><p> </p><p>“So...<em>this</em> is the fifth cut…” Kylar said loud enough for the others to hear, and he began to draw in dust, before blinking and immediately bringing up a wall of ice for Shina's air wave to smash into as the man reacted to the sound, the ice shattering into small shards, and Kylar brought his arm up to cover his eyes to protect them just for Shina to slip through his blind spot and drive his foot into his stomach, sending him sprawling backwards in a tumble that had his aura crackle dangerously. Before Shina could advance further, Chrystal intercepted, and an ice arrow from Tacita was enough to freeze Shina's feet to the ground just long enough that Kylar could roll out of the way and back to his feet.</p><p>The ice around his feet was easily broken, and Shina swung for Chrystal again.</p><p>Her aura was already dangerously low. One more solid hit from him, and she'd be done for.</p><p> </p><p>“We can’t beat him.” Shaking her head and flourishing her blades, Chrystal deflected and made enough movement that Shina’s eyes and focus stayed on her. “Not at the fifth.”</p><p>“Either he kills <em> us </em> , the cut kills <em> him </em>, or we somehow stop him. Those are the outcomes.” Tacita reached up and drew an arrow from her quiver.</p><p> </p><p>In her Semblance, Shina looked...wrong. In the same way Neo had appeared blurry and distorted, and Emerald’s hallucinations had appeared shadowy and almost transparent, Shina looked dark. Almost like a contamination on her sight. It had a deep pulse of fear within her chest.</p><p>He was unnatural. And it had her hands shaking even as she drew an arrow.</p><p>Suddenly Chrystal was in front of her and blocking Shina again, with the man having responded to her drawing an arrow, and Chrystal caught his blade as it swung for Tacita’s neck. The sheer concussive force of the impact just in front of her sent Tacita stumbling back a multitude of paces, her breath caught in fear, and Chrystal shouted at her sternly even as she dodged and ducked around Shina’s blade.</p><p> </p><p>“Get <em>out</em> of melee range, and get up high. You have to slow him down. It’s the only way this is happening.” Chrystal didn’t look away from Shina as she shouted to Tacita, grunting in exertion as she caught Shina’s blade in between her own and the sheer power behind his attack had the stonework around them crack, and her knees almost buckled.</p><p>But she was able to keep up with him easily enough, she just had to do it <em>carefully</em>. If he was able to get too much weight behind his swings then the air current he generated would blast through even if she blocked, so those swings had to be dodged despite the damage it would do to the surroundings. Either that or she had to catch them early to stop their momentum before it built, and that was easy enough as well. Shina knew how she fought, so there was a lot of risk involved especially considering he seemed to be fighting to either kill or seriously injure.</p><p>It scared her to death. Shina was stronger than her.</p><p>If the dangerous levels of Kylar's and Tacita's aura were any indication, Shina was stronger than all three of them.</p><p>He always had been, but he always held back. She'd never met someone as afraid of themselves as Shina was.</p><p>With that gone, she could feel under every swing of his that if she took one solid hit...she was dead.</p><p> </p><p>But she just had to buy the others time to come up with something, and she could faintly hear the chambers of Kylar’s staff spinning as he absorbed massive quantities of dust, clearly with some sort of plan in mind. But she didn’t have time to think about it, she just had to trust him. Holding Shina’s blade in place in a clash, an arrow sailed down and pierced into his thigh before crackling into ice, freezing him in place just long enough Chrystal could slice across his chest. If she broke his aura, the cuts closed, but she paid for it when his free hand almost managed to grab her throat.</p><p>But while he did know how she fought, she was faster since Beacon. Far faster.</p><p> </p><p>The ice around his leg was smashed with a simple flex of his muscle in an attempt to free himself, and then he and Chrystal were darting around the courtyard again, the stonework and surrounding structures suffering greatly and loudly under the onslaught of Shina’s swings, and Tacita did her best to lace the courtyard with traps and ice that she knew Chrystal could evade but Shina wouldn’t be able to.</p><p>Meanwhile Kylar watched in panic even as he came up with plans and discarded them at a rapid speed. Shina was fast, strong, and smart, and it would only take one solid hit from him to break any of their auras, so they had to do this quickly before he also potentially tore his own body apart. But while he did appear to be taking damage from his own movements, the tendrils pulsed and ebbed in the places that were damaged, as if holding them together and allowing them to move and work despite the breakages and tears.</p><p>Once the cuts closed and the tendrils went dormant, Kylar didn’t want to know how much pain his friend was going to be in, so they had to finish this quickly.</p><p>They couldn’t hit him or they’d savagely hurt him. They couldn’t kill him, for obvious reasons. They couldn’t simply try and tire him out because he’d tear himself apart in the meantime. They had to incapacitate him somehow.</p><p> </p><p>Spinning through his dust reserves, Kylar sucked in a breath as an idea came to him, and he began to draw in as many gravity and rock dust crystals as he could hold and work with.</p><p>Focusing, he stretched out the gravity energy into almost a rope, stretched and tied so it was a weighted knot, and he held the rock dust in reserve. It took far too much time, but gravity dust was delicate and difficult to work with. When it was eventually ready, Chrystal wasn’t just tiring out, her aura was crackling and she was breaking under Shina’s relentless assault.</p><p>Tragically, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as Kylar spun and prepared the gravity loop Chrystal was sent sprawling away from the sheer strength of one of Shina’s slashes that she was forced to block, and it gave Kylar room to spin out the rope and wrap it around Shina tightly. Clenching his hand into a fist as if he was actively holding onto something, Kylar tightened the gravity well around the center of Shina's mass and squeezed, pushing as much of his aura as he could maintain into it. Forcing all of his will onto it, Kylar wrapped it around Shina as tightly as he could, binding him in a dense pull of gravity that buckled him to his knees and held him steady. But Kylar didn’t doubt that he’d be able to overpower it once he focused, with Shina already planting a foot to rise to his feet once again, so he released the rock dust he’d been holding back and called upon the cracked stonework of the town square and the broken bricks of the nearby buildings, pulling them all into the gravity well.</p><p>Rubble and rock groaned and cracked from around the square as it was all pulled towards the gravity well bound around his friend, and Kylar grunted under the immense focus it took to pull in the sheer mass of stone and earth he needed in order to bind his friend as much as he could.</p><p>Stone and earth was drawn in around Shina, and an arrow from Tacita sent the boy’s sword spinning from his grip as he was gradually sealed inside of a casket of stone and rock, trapped with only a space for his head, otherwise completely immobilising him.</p><p> </p><p>Unable to move and his enhanced strength not enough to burst through thick stone held together with a powerful gravity well, Shina struggled in vain up until Chrystal safely approached from behind and used the hilt of her blade to knock him over the back of the head, sending him unconscious.</p><p> </p><p>The tendrils immediately stilled, the pulsing and writhing stopped, and they began the agonisingly slow process of fading and retreating. While Kylar figured they’d pull away from his head and neck quickly, they’d take a while to fade from the rest, holding his joints and muscles together while they started to heal.</p><p>As horrific and corrupt as his Semblance was, it had clearly demonstrated it had a sense of self-preservation.</p><p>Letting out an exhausted sigh of relief, Kylar looked at his unconscious and sealed friend sadly, while Tacita hopped down and both herself and Chrystal joined him.</p><p> </p><p>“...what the hell <em> was </em>that?” Tacita’s voice was barely above a whisper, and she glanced between her two friends with wide eyes. Chrystal remained silent, lost in her own thoughts, while Kylar shook his head helplessly.</p><p> </p><p>After a few moments of each of them looking at him, Chrystal glanced to the other two. “Go on, I’ll stay with him while you two go check on any survivors. But after all of that...I’m not sure how many there are even going to be.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>When Shina began to reawaken, the first thing he was aware of was the immense amount of agony he was in just from the physical exertion of breathing, and he barely managed to open his eyes, showing he was indoors, in an almost completely empty room, seated up against a wall. Every single part of him hurt, and he groaned at the effort it took to sit back and take some of the weight off his chest so breathing became easier. Every small action was agonising as it moved things that were either strained, stretched, or fractured, and he felt his aura working furiously to heal a copious amount of wounds.</p><p>Finally able to see properly, he was in someone’s living room, but almost all the furniture had been removed from it, keeping it an empty room, with the only furniture left being the dining table which was pressed against the far wall. Chrystal was sitting up on it, her legs dangling from it and her blades laying across her legs, talking quietly with Kylar who was leaning against the wall next to her.</p><p>Tacita was nowhere to be seen.</p><p> </p><p>When he shuffled in movement, Chrystal glanced over at him and her face went from anxious to serious, her eyes hardening as she hopped from the table and walked over, staying out of reach as she knelt down.</p><p>“So, am I talking to Shina again?”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking in confusion, Shina winced as a pulse of memories came back to him, and everything that had happened in the town square returned to him in a stream, causing his breath to catch in his throat as he almost went to gag. Closing his eyes, he nodded, and Chrystal hummed under her breath. A hand want to the collar of his jacket and looked under it as Chrystal examined the still present tendrils that were in the process of fading, and he opened his eyes to study them himself, lifting up his hands and arms to look at the skin, removing his gloves and pushing up his sleeves.</p><p>Taking in how thick and sickly they were, he sighed and looked away as memories continued to return.</p><p>They were his memories, but they also...weren’t. It was like he’d been a copilot, and not in the main chair. A bit of control, but no authority.</p><p>Everything had made sense at the time, no matter how wrong it actually was. Something had silently and wordlessly explained how they were all the right decisions to make and the right approach.</p><p>It was like his own mind hadn’t even been a part of the conversation.</p><p>When he acknowledged that Chrystal was still watching him quietly, he noticed that her blades were still nearby, within her reach if she was to move as fast as she always did. He didn’t blame her, not really. It was a treatment he definitely deserved.</p><p>The memories still crawled back in, and he heard the crack of stone and wood from his swings. But at the time, he hadn’t cared.</p><p>He looked into Chrystal’s eyes. </p><p> </p><p>“...how...many people did I...?”</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal paused at his question, and she seemed to ponder over the answer as they looked into each other's eyes. Her own were guarded, but sympathetic, yet she was also clearly still on edge and on a tight string.</p><p>She was clearly trying to decide whether or not to lie to him, and it took her a few moments to come to a decision.</p><p>“I’m still ahead of you in numbers overall, if that helps.”</p><p>“That doesn’t tell me anything.” His voice was more desperate than he was happy with, and she sighed in surrender.</p><p>“Thirteen.”</p><p>It was like a fist smashed into his gut, and he squeezed his eyes shut and looked away. “Oh gods…”</p><p>“It was certainly something to watch.” Still crouching in front of him, Chrystal sat back and crossed her arms. “You’ve only been out maybe five hours though. You’re healing incredibly quickly.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding absently, hearing her but his mind prioritising the earlier information, Shina sat up slightly straighter and <em> felt </em>as he was healing, and it was definitely faster than he was used to, so he frowned and studied his right arm. Fractured and pulled from using his sword during advanced cuts, it was clearly damaged just from looking at it, but the tendrils seemed to be lingering around the more damaged areas and he could feel his aura working quickly to heal it all. Despite the damage, his hand and fingers responded well, if shakily, but there was no way of knowing just how much strength he had in it again yet.</p><p> </p><p>“...I guess I’m getting used to it.” He murmured, closing his eyes in a sigh and looking down, and Chrystal hummed in agreement.</p><p>“Guess so. How’s your head? And I don’t mean physically.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment as he thought over it, Shina opened his eyes again. “Fuzzy. The memories aren’t quite right. But I do remember.”</p><p>“Yeah. It’s scary, but it’s what I expected your answer to be.” Chrystal nodded, unsurprised, and when Shina frowned at her she shrugged. “I know that look in a person’s eyes. I’ve been there. A lot. It’s sorta my whole deal. The memories aren't going to fully clear up, don’t expect them to.”</p><p> </p><p>Scoffing, but understanding, Shina nodded and let out a laboured breath, before giving her a guilty and apprehensive look. “So what now?”</p><p>“Now? You heal, we resupply, we get out of here.”</p><p>“That’s it?”</p><p>Raising an eyebrow at him, Chrystal stood and returned her swords to their sheaths on her back, putting her hands in her pockets and looking down at him with icy but not hostile eyes.</p><p>“What do you want? A trial? A punishment?” Chrystal snorted, before fixing him with an almost annoyed and frustrated look. “I’ve been where you are, and there’s no point in a slap on the wrist. Heal until you can properly move, and then we’re going. Tacita’s grabbing supplies right now.”</p><p>“Chrystal…”</p><p>“What?” She snapped, before rolling her eyes with a sigh and relaxing. “Look...we’ll talk about it. We will. But not yet. We have to move. I know you don’t want to, but force it. Just like I did.” </p><p>Staying quiet for a moment, Shina forced himself to rise to his feet, no matter how much his body protested and screamed at every movement, and Chrystal made no move to try and help him. Standing, but swaying and with a strained expression, he nodded to her.</p><p>But she rolled her eyes.</p><p>“If you want to force yourself to feel pain and punish <em> yourself </em>, fine. But it just slows you down in the end. I can tell you that one from experience too.”</p><p>A few moments later, she seemed to decide to have some kind mercy on him, and she stepped over to him with a sympathetic expression.</p><p>“Shina, you can’t let it stop you. Not yet. Once we’re at the docks, we’ll take a night or two before we head to Anima, and you can take the time then. Just like I waited until I was back on Patch. But until then, you need to keep moving for us.”</p><p>“I just…” Shina winced, and she reached out and cupped his cheek.</p><p>“I know. And I know how it feels. I promise you that. Which is why I’m telling you to keep moving.” Hesitating for a moment, she briefly pressed her lips to his cheek and then stepped away, glancing to Kylar over her shoulder and gesturing that it was time to move.</p><p> </p><p>As the three of them left the abandoned house, Chrystal tentatively passed Hornet’s Kiss back to Shina, and he hesitated for a few moments before cautiously taking it in his grip. While both Kylar and eventually Tacita seemed to have hard times looking at him, it wasn’t out of judgement or disgust, it was out of fear, and he could see it.</p><p>Meanwhile Chrystal seemed unbothered for the most part, seeming to be more <em> frustrated </em>than anything else, and he was sure there were a wide range of reasons why. As they made their way out of the empty and abandoned village, Chrystal glanced over at him with stern eyes.</p><p>“Shina, until we talk about your cuts, until we figure this out and narrow down what the hell just happened...don’t use your Semblance.”</p><p> </p><p>At that, all three of the others looked at him, and while Kylar’s face was guarded and apprehensive Tacita had sympathy and anxiety on his behalf in her eyes. It had taken all three of them to stop him, it had been a vivid reminder just how much stronger than each of them he actually was when he didn’t hold back, when he wasn’t afraid.</p><p>And that wasn’t even the halfway point of how strong his Semblance was potentially able to reach. But his lack of focus, unable to control himself, had broken buildings.<br/>Last time, the fifth cut had almost killed his body to use, and it had taken him three days to heal from it. Now he was up within five hours. Bones were still fractured and muscles still pulled almost to snapping point, in places, but the tendrils were present and seemed to be healing him.</p><p>He was adapting quickly. Far too quickly.</p><p>But it seemed that from the fourth cut onwards it wasn’t his body that needed to adjust. It was his mind.</p><p>And that was a terrifying change.</p><p>Letting out a guilty and weighted sigh, he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“...okay. I’m...I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Eh.” Chrystal shrugged, before readjusting her bag and giving him a small smile. “It just feels kinda nice that it wasn’t me this time.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Be Reborn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Team LAVA leave the safety of the town of Shion to head out further into the wilderness of Mistral, creeping closer and closer to the territory where Huntsmen have been vanishing for months, and they are forced to handle the fear in their own ways. Meanwhile Delilah finally collects the last ingredient she needs for her grand experiment, and the results are more than she could ever have imagined.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: Smoking, Brief mentioning of drugs, and the entire second half is a Delilah segment.</p><p>ALSO a TW for implied/referenced Cannibalism.<br/>So there's that.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Biting into her apple, Alice watched from where she was sitting on the branch of a tree as Lily put Angel through her paces, Lucy sitting against the tree with a book on her lap and a notebook next to her where she was taking notes. Smirking as Angel was sent to the ground yet again, Alice finished her apple and tossed the core away.</p><p>Even though they were taking a break before heading back out, that didn’t mean training stopped. Angel had been improving quickly but she was still behind the others, even behind Alice, but under Lily’s experienced and masterful tutelage she was strengthening at a faster rate than she would have under the guidance of the usual teachers.</p><p>Murmurs drew her attention and she glanced over to where some of the citizens of Shion had wandered over to watch, not having much experience with Huntsmen. There was a unit of four permanently stationed in the town, but they were so incorporated into the community that they weren’t considered a spectacle or a treat to observe anymore, despite how talented the four of them actually were. Meanwhile team LAVA were new, and apparently that made them interesting.</p><p>While Lily didn’t mind, immediately able to dismiss them from her mind, Angel was clearly faltering under having an audience. To her credit, she didn’t stop, but she pointedly wasn’t looking around and instead trying to completely focus on the advice Lily was giving her as she helped her go through paces and stances for her unique weapon that Lily believed might work, able to teach her the basics and allow Angel to develop the rest of her unique style on her own.</p><p>But that was done through a trial by fire, so it meant Lily was sending Angel to the ground a lot, much to the amusement of Alice but causing murmurs from the crowd watching.</p><p> </p><p>Shion was a large town, and the population had only grown as civilians from the smaller villages nearby had fled to the city for the protection and safety of numbers and the guards. While the presence of a second Huntsman team patrolling the area and wiping out Grimm numbers was reassuring to most of the villagers, it wasn’t the same feeling of safety that they had enjoyed back when communications were online and Huntsman numbers were larger.</p><p>But in this area of the country Huntsmen were vanishing at a concerningly high rate, enough that LAVA were on edge despite the casual and relaxed demeanour they made sure to give off to keep the civilians calm. Something was in the area and picking off experienced Huntsmen like snacks, except they were vanishing completely with no bodies or signs remaining.</p><p>Snatched up.</p><p>Narrowing her eyes in a frown, Alice crossed her arms over her chest and let one of her legs swing from the branch lazily, clicking her tongue. Hearing the faint noise, Lucy looked up from where she was sitting and reading, and raised her eyebrows.</p><p> </p><p>“You good?”</p><p>“Yeah! Yeah, just thinking.” Alice sighed, slipping from the branches and using her tail wrapped around the branch to lower herself gradually to the ground, landing next to her friend, before sitting down next to her and resting her back against the trunk of the tree as well, frowning. “What do you think is out there?”</p><p>“Hmm?...I…” Lucy frowned and shook her head, closing the book on her lap and putting down her pen. “I don’t know. I can’t find anything that it might be. Grimm don’t snatch prey.”</p><p>“Bandits maybe?”</p><p>“Maybe...but the towns have been left alone.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing, Alice gave Lucy a wary look. “For now.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in agreement, Lucy gently tossed the book from her lap to next to her, dropping it onto her notebook, and she ran her hands over her face and through her hair, stretching them above her head.</p><p>“Whatever is happening, it’ll try to happen to us eventually, and we’ll deal with it.”</p><p>Snorting, Alice gave her friend and team leader a dark but bemused look. “We’re both the bait and the trap. It’s the worst strategy we’ve ever come up with. For anything. Ever.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a few moments sadly and helplessly, Lucy could only shrug. “It’s the best we’ve got. We’re heading for the outskirts today, that’s where it’s been happening.”</p><p>“You sure it’s wise to leave Shion?”</p><p>“They’ve got the others, and their guards have been recruiting. But the villages out west don’t have that.”</p><p>“I guess.” Alice mumbled in agreement, before pouting playfully. “I’m going to miss sleeping in an actual bed.”</p><p> </p><p>Silently, Lucy agreed, but it was necessary. Shion had been a good base of operations while they handled the nearby villages, but so much of the nearby population had retreated to the town that the Grimm wouldn’t be drawn into the villages much anymore anyway. Between the other huntsmen and the guards, Shion would be safe from the usual Grimm problems, meanwhile villages further away to the southwest weren’t as lucky or as safe. They had a job to do even if none of them were happy with it and Alice <em> actively </em>distrusted Professor Lionheart about it, so they would do it. Even if it meant going into the territory where huntsmen far more experienced than themselves had been vanishing at a steady rate, to such a degree that the country’s overall Huntsman numbers were getting dangerously stretched thin across the territory. If a student team had been deployed, things were worse than Lionheart had been admitting to anybody.</p><p>They couldn’t linger on those paranoias though, as valid as they felt they were.</p><p> </p><p>“Where do you want to head first?” Alice watched Angel and Lily even as she spoke, but the amused smile was gone from her face as her thoughts instead were on darker things.</p><p>“We’ll go and relieve Orion’s unit from Ochado so they can rotate out and come back here to rest for a while.”</p><p>“Ochado?” Alice raised her eyebrows and glanced over at her. “That’s a long way.”</p><p>“We’ll take the dropship, and Orion can fly it back. But…” Lucy winced in concern. “It does mean we’ll be out of range in case something happens here. With no way to quickly get back.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in agreement, and to emphasise the point, Alice went back to watching as their teammates finished up their training for the day, the two of them picking up that a serious conversation was going on. Sliding her swords away, Lily made her way over with Angel just behind her panting and out of breath.</p><p>“When are we leaving?” Lily grabbed a canteen of water and took a drink before tossing it to Angel.</p><p>“An hour. Pack up.” Standing, Lucy pulled Alice to her feet.</p><p> </p><p>Heading back to the tavern they’d been staying at, the people of Shion parted for them and gave them appreciative smiles and nods of farewell as they made their way to the one airship the town had in service, hopping up into it and beginning the two hour long flight to the small town of Ochado in the south. It was a quarter of the size of Shion, and in the center of a cluster of five tiny villages to operate as the center of trade and administration for the area. But with no permanent huntsmen, and only a small corps of guards barely more than a haphazard militia, it was a prime target for any Grimm or bandits that were feeling ambitious and up for only a slight challenge. It was a miracle the town was still standing after the past weeks of chaos.</p><p>The forest rushed by below them as they flew, Lucy keeping watch on the ground below in case of anything that might require them diverting, such as smoke or other signs of danger, but apart from the near constant rain and howling winds the forest itself seemed quiet. Deceptively so.</p><p>She had a strong idea of the sorts of dangers that were hiding within, and their airship had almost certainly been seen by the few small bandit clans in the area.</p><p>Hopefully the knowledge that Huntsmen were deploying into the area would dissuade them of anything particularly brave. But Lucy wasn’t holding her breath on that.</p><p>The bandits were growing more restless as their usual pickings dried up.</p><p>It was only going to be a matter of time until one of the groups tried something. And while there were no massive tribes currently in the territory, there were a couple of larger ones on the edges of the regions that were on the move and sniffing around.</p><p>Somehow it had gotten obvious that the holes in the defensive lines were growing larger, and no matter how much work the remaining huntsmen teams did it was going to become increasingly easy for people to slip through and be able to run wild.</p><p> </p><p>Gripping the handrailing of the airship door tight enough her hand hurt, Lucy closed her eyes in frustration. The four of them had done a lot of good work since deploying, and Grimm numbers had dwindled in the Shion region, but they were going to a far wilder and rougher area of forest that was far more off the main roads.</p><p>They’d be busy here for quite a while, a couple of weeks at least, and that was just in the hope of making a dent.</p><p>Eventually their target came into sight and Lucy roused her team, each of them standing and swinging their packs on in preparation as the jet touched down gently in a small clearing on the outskirts of the town of Ochado, a simple small harvesting village lucky enough to settle into a rare natural clearing in the trees. The people of the town were exhausted and beaten down, so the team only got smiles of acknowledgement and nothing more as they made their way in, heading for the tavern where it was almost certain that the other team were staying.</p><p>While Lucy spoke to the tavern keeper about renting rooms, Alice scanned the bar area until she found one of the men she was looking for, and she nodded to the others before making her way over to where a heavily wounded Orion was resting with two members of his team, each of them heavily wounded and exhausted as well.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning as she reached them, Alice nodded to Orion when the man finally noticed her, and he managed a grim smile of acknowledgement.</p><p>“Team LAVA?”</p><p>“Yep. Here to relieve you, from Shion.”</p><p>“Fuck...it’s about time...a week ago would have been good.” The older man mumbled and winced, nursing a brutally torn up arm.</p><p> </p><p>Pausing, Alice narrowed her eyes as she glanced at the three men, before looking over her shoulder and giving a shrill whistle so that her team would join her, the three other girls making their way over quickly.</p><p>Glancing over the men, Lucy frowned and looked to Orion. “What happened? Where’s your fourth?”</p><p>“Gone.. We were out in the east woods a week ago.” Orion’s face fell, and he massaged his gouged shoulder and bicep with a pained and heavy wince. “It was...I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t a Grimm.”</p><p>“What do you mean it wasn’t a Grimm?”</p><p>“...it was…” Orion’s face went from pain to anxious fear, and he swallowed at the memory of the beast. “It looked like a woman. Except...oh <em> gods </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment as the four of them thought over it, they each looked between each other with suspicious and anxious glances. Lucy looked back at Orion.</p><p>“What did this one have? Fangs, claws, far too tall?”</p><p>“What? I...it was the height of any other woman.” Orion shuddered, his eyes flashing. “Fangs, yes. And...it was fast. Too fast. But it was winged. Like a raven. Black feathers...”</p><p>“Wings??” Alice’s eyes went wide and she sucked in a breath. If the four of them were right in their faint suspicion, memories lingering, then...that was a new one.</p><p>“It was on us before we could react. Tearing into us. And it just kept <em> screaming </em> , like it was in agony. It was almost <em> laughter </em>...” Orion’s eyes were distant as he remembered, and his face was paled. “Once it had our auras down it just...delicately sank its fangs into Gilda’s throat, and he went still. Limp. But he was alive, breathing in its grip. And then it just...left with him. Took off. Like neither he or it had ever been there in the first place.”</p><p>“...I’m sorry.” Lucy sighed, looking down, and Orion shakily nodded and swallowed the dry lump in this throat.</p><p>“It was over in moments. I’ve never fought anything like it. And...those eyes...”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a few moments, Lucy let out a breath. “Green and glowing?”</p><p>Looking at her curiously, Orion nodded.</p><p>Closing her eyes in dread, Lucy bit the inside of her lip and nodded, before opening her eyes and placing her hand on the man’s healthier shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“The airship is waiting for you. Return to Shion, and rest. We’ll take it from here.”</p><p>“...be careful, kid. We’ve lost too many down in this hell.”</p><p>“We will.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>That night, Alice knocked on Lucy’s door and didn’t wait for a response before pushing it open, sighing silently when she saw the girl poring over a map, her notebook open, and a pen spinning between her fingers. Dark shadows were underneath her team leader’s eyes, and with her armour removed and just in jeans and a t-shirt Lucy looked more like a scared and stressed teenage girl than she would ever allow anyone outside of her team to see her.</p><p>But it’s late at night, far too late, and when Alice had accepted her prediction had been right that Lucy wouldn’t be joining her teammates down for drinks and dinner, she had left the other two to their own devices and made her way upstairs.</p><p>Despite her intrusion, Lucy didn’t look up to acknowledge Alice’s entrance, merely giving a hum of inquisitive greeting as she flipped through the pages of her notebook. Lucy was a talented fighter, but her strength was a knack for strategy and predictions that the others had never been able to understand no matter how much she had tried to explain, somehow turning numbers and data into scarily accurate maps and predictions for battles and movements to come.</p><p>She could track a Grimm pack across a map down to a hundred metre radius without ever laying an eye on them or seeing a single physical track. It was eerie.</p><p>But brilliant.</p><p> </p><p>Alice also knew it was exhausting and how her friend distracted the rest of her mind while she was thinking about other things. So she made her way over to the table and placed down a plate with a sandwich, and a glass of wine, and sat on the edge of the windowsill in the small room.</p><p>Glancing at the food and drink, Lucy finally paused in her writing, and she put down her pen.</p><p>“I’m late.”</p><p>“Just a tad.” Alice gave a small and understanding smile, before shrugging. “The others finished eating two hours ago. Last call is in ten minutes.”</p><p>“...sorry.” Taking a bite of her sandwich, Lucy gave a small smile to Alice in thanks, and looked back down at her map which was covered in scribbles and numbers.</p><p> </p><p>Not answering, Alice simply gave another small smile before turning and looking out of the window onto the streets of the small town. The inn was tiny, barely a handful of rooms for rent, but there were no guests or visitors at all so it hadn’t been hard to procure rooms for the duration of their deployment, and they’d insisted on paying despite the innkeeper’s objections otherwise.</p><p>So it meant a warm place to eat and sleep whilever they were in the town itself and not out in the boundaries.</p><p>A safe place to sleep, meant security to plan and strategize and for Lucy to work herself into exhaustion over her maps and her scroll and her damned notebook.</p><p>The new data that Orion had given them about the fate of his teammate, and the creature that had taken him, had put a similar suspicion and paranoia into each of their minds. They had all fought the humanoid monsters at the battle for Beacon. Horrors that were half-human, half something else. If they were starting to appear in the area, then the villages were in more danger than Grimm or bandits could ever hope to pose.</p><p>So, Lucy was almost certainly going to work and stress herself to death working over the problem.</p><p>Alice watched as the other girl took a sip of her wine and picked up her pen again, muttering constantly under her breath as she worked, and she bit her tongue to stop herself making any sort of comment, but Lucy knew her too well.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll figure it out.”</p><p>Nodding, Alice tried to give her a reassuring look. “I know we will. We’ll head out tomorrow and look for tracks and signs, and we’ll put the pieces together.”</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah.” Lucy exhaled heavily and went back to work, not looking up. “We’ll get it.”</p><p>“Lucy…”</p><p>“I know. I’ll stop soon.” Lucy glanced up at her with earnest eyes, and Alice bit the inside of her lip at the sincere stress in the look Lucy was giving her. “Just...the more we know, the better.”</p><p>“There’s only so much we can do with what we have currently. We’ll head out to the other towns, we’ll get information…” Alice said slowly, voicing her compromise. “And we’ll put it together. But there’s not much you can do right now.”</p><p> </p><p>Hesitating, Lucy put down her pen again and finished her wine, before sighing in resignation and making her way over to the window and leaning on the other side of the windowsill, both of them looking onto the street before looking back at each other.</p><p>“They looked like hell.”</p><p>“Of course they did. They lost a teammate to something...that we were never trained for.” Alice said quietly, a grim smile on her face, and Lucy nodded, thinking for a moment before tapping her hand on the wall stressfully.</p><p>“You think it’s them again? Those...things.”</p><p>“Only one way to find out. But we know how strong they are. If they’re what have been making Huntsmen vanish, I’d believe it.” Alice nodded, her eyes flashing sadly and pained as she looked down at the wood she was sitting on, and she picked at the timber with her fingers.</p><p>“Things are so different now…” Lucy stepped away from the wall and went back to her maps, the comment just a throwaway one as she grabbed the second half of her sandwich and picked up her pen, but Alice gave a quiet scoff that had her glance back over. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t know if things are different, or if we’re just seeing things that we missed before. These forests have always been darker than what the academy teaches us. They just don’t want to scare us. I can <em> feel </em>things in these trees.”</p><p>“Even if that’s true, things are different <em> for us </em>now.” Lucy stressed, her eyes lingering on Alice until the other girl nodded to concede the point, and she went back to her notes. “Your dad doing okay?”</p><p>“Getting sicker, the winter is going to...well, he’s going to get a lot worse.” Alice’s voice was quiet, and she folded her hands on her lap, looking out over the street so that Lucy wouldn’t be able to see any shadows in her eyes. “But he’s at peace with it.”</p><p>“It’s...good to make peace with it, I guess. He’s a good guy.”</p><p>“He is.” Smiling for a flicker of a moment, Alice changed the subject. “How about you? How was home? And be honest this time. It’s just you and me in here.”</p><p> </p><p>Not answering at first, Lucy went back to her work, narrowing down regions on her copy of the local map and noting in more details. But the words and numbers began to escape her, jumbling in her mind, so she paused in her writing and quietly tapped the pen onto the tabletop.</p><p>“My folks are safe, that’s the main thing. It was good to see them. It’s all safe.”</p><p>“I’m glad.” Alice smiled, before raising her eyebrows and stressing the true meaning of her question. “But <em> how was it? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Simply getting a shrug in response, with Lucy simply idly tapping her pen as she thought, Alice gave up on the question and was fine to sit quietly, lost in her own thoughts and just content to be close to her team partner and her team leader. Lily and Angel were the energetic ones, always burning and ready to go, with Lily’s relentless drive and Angel’s infinite energy being the carrying forces of the team, meanwhile Lucy and Alice were the two more collected ones.</p><p>Some of the best moments of their friendship happened during times where neither of them were saying a word.</p><p>Team LAVA had been an unusual matchup when they’d all been put together, and it had taken them a bit to click with all their personalities being so different, but now they worked together in a particular harmony.</p><p>While they weren’t the sort of team to spend every spare minute of their time with each other, each of them having their own lives and hobbies, they were still as close as sisters, and that was the main thing.</p><p> </p><p>Now they were out here. A long way from home.</p><p>Alice liked the wilds. The forest. The trees. It had always felt like home.</p><p>But she knew the others were scared.</p><p>She was scared too, right now.</p><p> </p><p>Especially if it meant dealing with a sort of enemy they’d barely been able to fight, and this newly described horror was something they hadn’t encountered before. They wouldn’t be able to devise a strategy until they got a good look at it, but when they got a good look at it it would likely be during an attack on them by it.<br/>Improvisation wasn’t their best strength. They were planners.</p><p>A sound snapped Alice out of her thoughts as she heard the flick of a lighter, and she glanced back into the room as Lucy clicked her lighter closed and took a drag from her cigarette, feeling safe to do so knowing that Alice was the member of the team who would never judge her for occasionally needing it. Each of the four of them had their own vice, ones they couldn’t escape no matter how hard they had tried;</p><p> </p><p>Angel would likely end the night dangerously drunk.</p><p>Lucy would smoke.</p><p>And even sitting there on the windowsill, Alice was craving the peace of mind that being high would give her.</p><p>Meanwhile Lily...she had her own unhealthy ways of balancing herself whenever she needed it, but it required finding something for her to fight.</p><p> </p><p>While the other three beat themselves up for their compulsions and addictions, Alice didn’t feel the same way. But then again, she’d been an addict the longest out of the four of them. The problem with having parents that worked in pharmaceuticals was that it meant that you had access to pharmaceuticals. Especially when you could camouflage into your surroundings and be practically invisible if you walked slow enough.</p><p>But she’d resist for tonight at least. She hadn’t brought much with her in the first place, and there was no way of knowing when they’d be returning to Haven where she’d be able to get more, so best to ration it and stretch it out.</p><p> </p><p>Casually waving a hand to blow away the scent of cigarette smoke, she knew Lucy wouldn’t take it personally, it was just a gross scent that she’d never adjusted to, but she wasn’t going to whine about it. If it was what Lucy needed to get her mind off what she was freaking out about, it was what she needed.<br/>But tomorrow they’d all need to focus. By the time Lucy finally let herself go to bed, she’d have an exact idea of where they should go first, down to a scarily narrowed down area. And they’d be looking for something that had seemingly mastered the art of hunting down Huntsmen, in its home turf which they weren’t familiar with.</p><p> </p><p>Leaning back and resting her head against the wall, Alice closed her eyes, and Lucy must have picked up on her mood because she walked over to the window to join her once again, the two of them sharing a silent look of mutual dejection and anxiety before reaching over and taking each other’s hand reassuringly.</p><p>None of them were healthy enough or safe enough to do this properly. They weren’t ready. They were students, and not brilliant ones. And there were plenty of compelling psychiatric reasons that had resulted in them being discharged from service along with the other student teams.<br/>But here they were.</p><p>Closing her eyes anxiously, Alice squeezed Lucy’s hand tightly, and Lucy ran her thumb along her skin softly.</p><p>They were both terrified. The other two still in the bar area were terrified.<br/>But they had to do this.<br/>And that thought had Lucy clench her own hand tightly in stress.</p><p> </p><p>“How do we last long enough to go home?” Alice whispered, looking down at her lap and allowing her eyes to open again, and Lucy could only shake her head softly and helplessly.</p><p>“We can’t think of it that way. It’s not about going home. It’s about getting it done.”</p><p>“Lucy, we don’t even know why we’re here. Maybe Lily and Angel are fine with trusting Lionheart, but <em> we </em>shouldn’t be the ones here.”</p><p>“I know. Trust me, I know. But that’s out of our control too.”</p><p> </p><p>Alice narrowed her eyes, and her mind went far away.</p><p>“Just for now, at least.”</p><p> </p><p>“One puzzle at a time though, yeah?” Lucy gave a bemused chuckle, before releasing Alice’s hand and patting her on the shoulder. “Come on, it’s late. Bed for all of us, I think.”</p><p>“...alright.” Alice sighed, swinging from the windowsill and hopping to her feet. “I’ll go nag the other two.”</p><p>“Thanks.” Lucy began to pack up her notes, sorting them away on the small table, and she smiled at Alice as the girl made her way out of the room. “Night hon. Sleep well.”</p><p>“You too.”</p><p> </p><p>Keeping the affectionate smile on her face up until Alice closed the door, Lucy let it fall from her lips the moment she was able to as she looked back down at the map spread out on the table. Having grilled Orion for every detail she could about the previous weeks, and then doing the same with the locals, she’d been able to establish a basic timeline of events and narrow things down.</p><p>Combined with the information on some of the other Huntsmen who had vanished, and the missions they had been on (which was all information that her paranoia and distrust had compelled her to download onto her scroll before she left) and she’d been able to figure out a basic outline of where the most dangerous areas were in their direct vicinity.</p><p>Which were the places they’d have to march right into in order to find their new target.</p><p>They were going to have to go right into the zone that had taken away huntsmen with decades more experience than them. And she was going to have to lead them into it.</p><p> </p><p>Rolling up her map, she closed her eyes and tapped her fingers along the thick paper rolled up in her hands, and sighed.</p><p> </p><p>They weren’t ready. </p><p>But they didn’t have a choice.</p><p>Why were they here? Why them?</p><p>Her mind had been tearing those questions apart for a month now. And she was no closer to figuring out any of the answers.</p><p> </p><p>Something was deeply wrong in Mistral, that was becoming increasingly clear, and Lionheart was either getting them <em> away </em> from it or throwing them into the <em> middle </em> of it.</p><p>They just had to figure out which one it was.</p><p>But for now at least, they just had to focus on surviving long enough they were able to get home at all.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>It had only taken a week of constant work, since Delilah barely needed to sleep, but now the town of Ikaksi was almost entirely silent. No movement, no life, no chatter. Only her children and the remaining unevolved villagers kept secure in the town hall as she worked her way through them, harvesting the best parts from those who were healthiest and turning the weaker into her children to assist in her work.</p><p>She enjoyed the quiet, and the fact she no longer had to worry about discretion, and instead of being forced to conduct her work in a small cramped house she had instead moved her operation into the office of the local doctor who had more appropriate tools at their disposal. The man had been in excellent shape, and after harvesting his nearly perfect heart she had replaced it with a poorer one and put him to work alongside the others.</p><p>With each child she created she felt her power growing and spreading, connected as a network through her growing number of children as their numbers increased daily.</p><p> </p><p>Sorting through her harvested ingredients and making sure none of them were able to deteriorate or lose their quality, Delilah looked over when a voice caught her attention.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I ask you something?”</p><p> </p><p>Raising her eyebrows, she looked over at where her prisoner, still alive and still chained, was sitting against the nearby wall and eating a bowl of soup that had been provided for her. There was nothing else to eat, and her determination to refuse food had broken once she had felt herself truly begin to starve, and so the girl desperately tried not to question the strange chunks of meat that gave the soup its flavour, a flavour that was only slightly familiar to her but was otherwise alien.</p><p>Over the past week the girl had grown...accustomed, to her situation. And once she had wept her tears upon discovering her home was no longer in the hands of humanity something in her had surrendered, and so even though her bindings had been loosened from their painful tightness she no longer thrashed or tried to escape. It was over.</p><p>It had been almost tragic to watch the moment that the resolve in the girl’s eyes had shattered and something tense in her had slumped, and Delilah no longer kept the girl gagged or her neck chained, so the girl now found it easier to breathe. But still, she’d never spoken a word, not until now.</p><p>So Delilah took a moment to regard the girl in surprise before nodding, putting down the jar she was holding.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course. What can I do for you?”</p><p>“You…” The girl flinched and hesitated, looking away. “You’ve explained your reasoning. And I think I get it. I’m not...totally sure.” Her voice quietened, anxiety striking into her and she almost dropped her bowl from her shaking and terrified hands. “But...why now? Is this the first town that you’ve...you know.”</p><p>Humming in curiosity at the question, Delilah went back to examining the numerous organs she had stored, checking the jar she had filled with the best eyes and poking through them one by one, holding each one up to scrutinise it as she considered her answer.</p><p>“I suppose it’s because I’ve finally been...given the opportunity. I’m sure you can imagine that my work is not exactly going to be embraced by common society. But I’ve been given permission by a force greater than them.”</p><p>“...her name is Salem, isn’t it?” The girl asked quietly, still looking down.</p><p>“You <em> have </em>been listening.” Delilah smiled in appreciation, screwing the lid back onto the jar and looking over at her. “Yes. To do my work, I needed allies. I now have them, and because my work helps them, I am encouraged to do it. It benefits us both.”</p><p>Still and quiet for a few moments, the girl eventually nodded, taking another mouthful of her soup and quickly washing down the chunks of meat with a gulp of water from a bottle next to her.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>Giving the girl a look of approval, Delilah smiled, before tilting her head and crossing her arms in thought. “As for your other question, I assisted at Beacon. But not to <em> this </em>extent. I was still a beginner.” She chuckled in amusement, thinking back to her mediocre earlier work.</p><p> </p><p>She had stopped creating her weaker thralls entirely, instead stepping up and improving her initial designs for them. Increased dexterity and finesse, slightly more intelligent and capable of autonomous reactions to problems that interrupted during their orders.</p><p>They behaved well. It had been easy to subdue the town once she had a decent number of them, and it had been almost without resistance once the guards had been killed and displayed to enforce her point.</p><p>Now she had dozens of subjects to harvest and evolve, and she was working through them at a rapid pace. But she still had her grand ambition in mind.</p><p> </p><p>One she would finally be able to attempt once her hunter returned with her latest captured prey, and Delilah could feel her approaching at the usual rapid speed she always did. This prey had been captured without much of a fight at all, so he was still in good condition, which meant there was a better chance of harvesting the last piece she needed.<br/>Glancing over at the girl, she studied the condition she was in and gave a small smile. It was good that the girl had picked today to find her confidence and her voice, as fear and desperation would weaken her nervous system which needed to be healthy and relaxed for the procedure if it was going to infuse properly.</p><p>It was finally going to be time to attempt what she had dreamt of doing alongside Doctor Rosha only a couple of months ago, but now she had no need of him. She still felt pangs at the loss of her friend, at the loss of <em> all </em>of her friends, but now that she was changed from Salem’s gift the emotions were muted enough that they didn’t obstruct her work.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going for Haven next, aren’t you.”</p><p>Delilah straightened at the resigned but certain voice that the girl said it with, and she raised her eyebrows at her deduction. With no need to lie to her, and no desire to, Delilah nodded without any guilt or reservations.</p><p>“We are. It’s why I’m working so quickly.”</p><p>“...yeah.” The girl finished her soup and curled up, hugging her legs to her chest. “<em> Really </em>quickly.”</p><p>“I know you hate it. And that you don’t quite understand it. But you’re trying to, and I really appreciate that effort.” Delilah said softly and kindly, going back to her work and assuming from the vacant and dead look in the girl’s eyes that the conversation was over. </p><p> </p><p>But a thought occurred to her and she looked back over.</p><p>“What’s your name?”</p><p>Looking up, the girl’s face tightened and her eyes were suddenly very afraid, and while she was clearly tempted to stay quiet her voice came out in a whisper anyway, as if she was unable to resist a compulsion.</p><p>“Kakassi.”</p><p>“Kakassi…” Delilah rolled the word around in her mouth and hummed in curiosity. “That’s an interesting one.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in shy agreement, Kakassi looked away at a far wall, closing her eyes and trying to shut the world out of her head and ignore the sound of jars being opened and then the slight squishing of flesh as her captor gently handled the harvested organs of people she had known all of her life. But she no longer felt any reaction to throw up, or shiver, or cry. Something in her was used to it.</p><p>Used to all of it.</p><p>So she simply sat, curled up and shackled to the wall with chains long enough she could wrap her arms around herself.</p><p> </p><p>“...I have a strange request.” Delilah asked softly, turning to face her captive properly, her hands in front of her, and Kakassi looked over at her anxiously. “When I evolve you, may I change your name?”</p><p>Kakassi looked at her wide shocked and wide eyes, her mind turning to terrified static as she was reminded that she was eventually going to be just another experiment, and she sucked in a gulp.</p><p>“What does it matter?...”</p><p>“I’ve never really asked the name of any of my pre-evolved children before. They’re normally already dead by the time I get my hands on them.” Delilah tilted her head curiously as she thought over it, and she scrunched up her mouth slightly. “When I begin on you, who you are currently will cease to exist. Kakassi will be gone, and something better will be in your place. Still your body for the most part, but no longer entirely you. I’d like to respect the life of Kakassi by separating <em> your </em>life from the one I’m going to give you. So, a new name for the new you.”</p><p>Staring at her with unblinking eyes for a minute, Kakassi’s mouth opened and closed slightly a couple of times as a cold wave went through her, and she swallowed a dry gulp and bent underneath Delilah’s gaze, which wasn’t even stern or hard. So she simply shrugged and looked away.</p><p>“Do what you want. It’s not like I’ll be able to remember or think about it.”</p><p> </p><p><em> ‘If I do it properly, you’ll be wrong about that…’ </em>Delilah thought to herself as she sighed quietly and turned back to her work, finishing up her inspections and beginning to prepare her workspace for her dissection of her latest Huntsman subject that was about to arrive.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s <em> your </em>name?” Speaking up, Kakassi looked over at a working and distracted Delilah once again. “...it’s Delilah, right? That orb Grimm thing said it one time. I overheard.”</p><p>Straightening up in surprise, Delilah finally turned to Kakassi properly and slowly walked over quietly, grabbing one of the dining chairs and spinning it so she could sink down into it across from where the girl was shackled on the ground. Her eyes were distant and mulling for a moment, and Kakassi was thrown off by her rapid change in demeanor.</p><p>“...it’s strange. Working on you.” Delilah rested her arms on her legs and clasped her hands together, leaning forward. “None of my other children know my name. Or know me at all, except for the connection with me. Yes, my name is Delilah. Delilah Blair.”</p><p>“...hey Delilah.”</p><p>“Hi Kakassi.” Delilah chuckled, but the strange look in Kakassi’s eyes had her fascinated and curious. </p><p>Her captive seemed distracted, aloof, almost detached from her own thoughts entirely as she swayed while leaning against the wall behind her.</p><p>“What are you going to do to me?...are you going to make me like my sister?”</p><p>“No. No, she’s one of a kind for now. I’m making another one like her soon. But not you. You’re…” Delilah sighed, crossing her arms and sitting back as she tried to think of the best way to explain it. “You’re going to be an attempt at a grander evolution than I have ever tried.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>The door opened, and the winged hunter walked in, carrying an unconscious Huntsman in her arms. With a simple thought from Delilah towards her, she carried the unconscious man into the surgical room and placed him onto the table before strapping him down with evolved dexterous fingers, while Delilah remained in the living room across from Kakassi, noticing as the girl didn’t seem to notice her sister at all, simply staring into the distance with a vacant expression.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t hurt, if you’re scared about that.”</p><p>“Of course I’m scared.” Kakassi’s voice was as empty as her eyes, and she didn’t return to alertness even as she responded. “I don’t want to die.”</p><p>“You won’t. Ever.” Delilah stood and pushed the chair back under the table, looking over at her broken captive as she walked towards the operating room. “I promise.”</p><p>“Yeah. Right. Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Giving the girl a curious glance, Delilah made her way into the surgery and sent the hunter out into the streets to patrol the skies for any sort of trouble as she got to work on the Huntsman that was under her hand. The man was alive, but with the potent venom in his blood he wouldn’t be back to consciousness for some time, giving Delilah free reign to examine his body while he was still alive, and checking the quality of what he had to offer.</p><p>The man’s aura appeared to be a dull grey, the colour of unpolished steel, and while he had quite a lot of it there <em> were </em>signs that it recharged incredibly slowly, making Delilah hum in disappointment. But she could make do with that, as long as the rest of what he had to offer was good enough, so it was finally time to check his brain.</p><p>Placing a finger on each temple, she closed her eyes and began to examine each individual part and piece of the man’s brain, prodding as she tested neurons and reflexes and sent sparks into synapses to see how he reacted, examining what he was capable of.</p><p>The man’s pain tolerance was immense, and he had developed incredible reaction time, clearly a melee fighter focused on speed, which made her all the more curious about what sort of Semblance he had at his disposal. But examining that had to come last, in case she accidentally caused damage that ruined the other worthwhile parts of his body. Huntsmen bodies were always in incredible condition, their auras kept their organs healthy and fresh, far healthier and in better condition than regular people.</p><p>Aura was an incredible part of what humanity had to offer, but it had gross limitations that made Delilah just as furious as the other barriers put in place that refused to budge no matter how much time passed. Everything she had said to Kakassi a week ago had been right, she despised stagnation, and that was the core of the human experience.</p><p>But the man had a lot to offer, and she was willing to use plenty of his organs even if his Semblance <em> potentially </em> wasn’t worth the attempt, simply able to collect other ones until she found one worthwhile.</p><p> </p><p>Humming in curious thought to herself as she prodded, she finally reached the section of his brain that was always seemingly responsible for unconsciously keeping an eye on the condition of aura, and also the use of semblances. It was a small section of the brain that remained dormant in the vast majority of people for their entire lives, with no activated aura or Semblances at all.</p><p>The fact that such a potent and useful part of what humanity was capable of <em> wasn’t naturally awakened </em>made Delilah just as livid as the other failings did, and she twitched once again as she thought over it.</p><p>Shaking her head to clear it, she sank back into her Semblance and lightly ran her aura over that section of the man’s brain, gently stroking it until she felt his own Semblance react to an aura touch and she could figure out what it did and what it was. When a small gust of wind went through the room and her hair blew slightly, she raised her eyebrows and dove deeper, running her aura over it again and feeling another gust of wind.</p><p>Poking and prodding over the next fifteen minutes, her smile grew wider and wider as she figured out what she was dealing with, making the man twitch his hands to activate his Semblance, with each movement displacing air at a far greater magnitude than normal. The man could focus wind in his movements, likely exercise a degree of control over it if he wished to, and if his aura was large enough…</p><p> </p><p>A laugh escaped her lips as she came back to the real world and opened her eyes, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. The man could control the air around his body, but what degree of control he had over it was impossible to predict and entirely down to his own focus.</p><p>It was perfect, and she wasted no time in agonisingly carefully extracting that section of the man’s brain and placing it into an appropriate jar.</p><p>But it wasn’t going to stay inside of it for long, not now that she had all the pieces she needed, and she gazed around at the perfect organs and parts she had collected just for the purpose of her next grand experiment.</p><p>Placing the jar of brain with the others, her collection of Semblances gradually growing but none of them quite as impressive at her new acquisition, she summoned her harpy to remove the body and dispose of it with the others for her to bring back later as one of her children.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered her earlier experiments when her childrens’ brains would explode after a certain amount of time once she had created them, and she still wasn’t sure just how long any of them would last. The more basic ones weren’t immortal, their functions would fail eventually, but the stronger ones seemed to be self-sustaining, the black flesh injected into them fuelling them steadily.</p><p>But it was all impossible to say, so she had no way of knowing just how many resources she was wasting. But every experiment she learned more, and she had no doubt that maybe...maybe she could create an immortal. One that wasn’t in constant agony like her harpy was, the poor child screaming in agony each time it moved its wings or was forced to fight, a horrifying screeching scream that the surviving civilians of Ikaksi had come to fear to the point of paralytic terror.</p><p>Thankfully, she was currently silent as she moved carefully outside, at Delilah’s wish.</p><p> </p><p>Returning to the living room, she folded her hands in front of herself and gave Kakassi a small and reassuring smile.</p><p>“It’s time.”</p><p>The girl limply didn’t resist as she was unshackled and pulled to her feet, Delilah’s hand gently on her arm as she led her into the operating room, where Kakassi numbly looked at the operating table and her blank expression finally faltered and she flinched.</p><p>“...I’m about to go, aren’t I.”</p><p>Speaking softly, Delilah rubbed her arm. “Yes.”</p><p>“My dad. My sister. My mother. You left me until last.”</p><p>“Coincidental timing, I promise. I wouldn’t intentionally schedule cruelty. If I’d collected the right components earlier, it would have been your turn sooner.”</p><p> </p><p>Kakassi nodded numbly, and Delilah noticed a few tears come from the girl’s eyes as she still simply stared at the operating table, taking in the few brown crusted stains of blood that Delilah had missed the last time she had scrubbed the table clean. She wasn’t sure how many of her friends were left alive, held prisoner in the town hall.<br/>But, from what she had seen in Delilah over the week, staring at her as she worked and listening to her many lessons, she knew that they wouldn’t be around for much longer. Delilah wasn’t going to stop until they were all evolved, until they were all her children. And then she was going to simply move on to the next town. And the next.</p><p>It hadn’t taken much paying attention for Kakassi to figure out the gist of the plan, able to listen in on the conversations Delilah had quietly had with the Grimm that looked like a floating jellyfish.</p><p>Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Kakassi closed her eyes and let a few more tears leak from her eyes as she began to shiver in fear. She didn’t want to die. She had spent a week trying to prepare for it, coming to peace with it.</p><p>But she wasn’t a Huntress, she wasn’t trained for finding that sort of peace, so standing in front of the operating table with her killer gently touching her arm had her eventually gasping out tears even as Delilah used her Semblance to guide the girl over to lay down on the table, and Delilah gently began to strap her down as Kakassi continued to shiver and cry, whispering indiscernible words that could have been prayers but also could have been pleading, yet they were too quiet for Delilah to hear properly.</p><p>Collecting each jar that she would need for what was going to be the longest and most delicate operation she had ever done, likely going to take her long into the night, Delilah ran through the procedure in her head that she had spent over a year thinking over and trying to theoretically refine. Every experiment so far had led up to this one.</p><p>It wasn’t like she only had one chance to get it right. She would be able to try over and over again until she figured it.</p><p>But every scientist wants their experiment to go right the first time.</p><p> </p><p>Letting Kakassi have her moments to beg or pray, and cry some final tears, Delilah laid out her tools and components, before looking down at the girl and giving a soft smile, running her fingers through the girl’s rich red hair.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to put you to sleep now. Take a few moments, I’m going to count down from ten.”</p><p> </p><p>If Kakassi heard her, she didn’t react, simply continuing in her whimpering and her whispering, and Delilah gently placed her hand on the girl’s head and quietly began to count down slowly, speaking the numbers loud enough that the girl could hear them but not so loud they would disrupt her whispers.</p><p>When she reached zero, it took a small wave of her aura to simply shut down Kakassi’s brain, and the girl was gone.</p><p>But Delilah immediately got to work, wrapping a layer of black flesh around the inside of her skull that was so thin it was practically translucent, but would pulse dark energy into her brain at a constant enough rate that it would be preserved, and that the small remaining pulses of life would continue, the girl simply being brain dead instead of completely deceased.</p><p>Getting to work, Delilah was right that it would take hours to delicately replace each of the girl’s internal organs and bons with a perfectly healthy and strong one that she had harvested, perfecting her body as much as possible as she started at her toes and worked her way up, replacing each individual bone with as perfect a replacement as she had been able to harvest, and infusing each inch in a delicate weave of black flesh, thinner yet more concentrated than she had ever attempted before.</p><p>Tendrils that would take a matter of moments on her other children instead took more than a couple of minutes for each bone and muscle as she focused on placing them as delicately and powerfully as possible. Each individual cell and nerve was infused and strengthened, and it took hours. Organs were replaced with stronger and healthier ones that she had harvested, the veins and arteries connecting to those organs were infused delicately and precisely.</p><p> </p><p>Rolling the girl over, Delilah began work on her spine, then hesitating a moment and carefully beginning the process of growing her wings. But unlike with the harpy, where she had accidentally rushed in her desire to see if it was going to work, which had resulted in limbs that caused her daughter unbearable agony every time they moved, instead she performed this operation with a nearly impossible degree of precision and care.</p><p>The black wings emerged from her spine slowly, the new bones and joints cracking into place, but she made sure to keep it properly proportioned, another part of the process she had failed in her initial conducting of the procedure. The pain and distress that she caused her daughter gave her a weight of black guilt, but what was done was done, and she had learned from her mistakes.</p><p>When the black feathers sprouting from the body’s wings developed blood red tips, Delilah raised her eyebrows as she realised that the girl actually had a considerably powerful aura that had never awakened, and the colour was such a potent red that it was mixing with the black flesh and Delilah’s own green aura in order to have a degree of influence.</p><p>Something in the girl’s brain, in her spirit, had accepted her fate to such a degree that her aura was actively submitting to Delilah’s own, and drawing in the black flesh with a mixture of willingness and resignation. Keeping the girl’s brain slightly active had turned out to be a godsend, as the <em> girl’s own aura </em> began to assist in clicking things into place in its natural drive to heal the body.</p><p>It began to make Delilah’s work much easier, and she gave a small grateful smile as she continued her work, constructing the joints of her wings so that she was able to fold them close to her body and keep them out of the way as much as possible, while also being adjusted to her center of mass enough that she’d have decent balance.</p><p>All were parts of the process she had accidentally skipped over with the girl’s sister, and a pang of guilt went through her yet again.</p><p> </p><p>Whether it was six hours later, or eight, or even longer, Delilah had no idea as she finally reached the girl’s head. Removing her gorgeous blue eyes, Delilah replaced them with far healthier ones that were close to a similar shade. The girl’s vision would be <em> much </em>better, but it was still a shame to lose such a perfect blue.</p><p>Even though Delilah knew that her own aura would turn them green in the process of evolving her properly.</p><p>Teeth were replaced with fangs, but instead of viciously large ones she instead made sure they were perfectly proportioned to her face and body, looking almost natural except for the pure razor sharpness.</p><p> </p><p>And then she reached the part of the process she knew would be the hardest and the most delicate, as she rolled the girl over yet again and delicately opened the back of her head to reach her brain, opening the jar containing the section of the Huntsman’s brain that she had extracted, and taking a shaky and nervous breath before focusing herself and beginning the agonisingly and terrifyingly delicate work of infusing the Huntsman’s brain with black flesh, twisting it and corrupting it until she could <em> feel </em>it radiating corrupt energy while sitting in the palm of her hand.</p><p>Nodding in satisfaction, she then began the more delicate part of the entire evolution so far, as she began to infuse the section of the Huntsman’s brain into the girl’s one, replacing synapses and sections with new as she twisted them together, combining the flesh and fusing them together using the sheen of black energy she had wrapped around the brain earlier which had acclimated and corrupted the flesh during the hours she had been doing the rest of her work. It took hours of pure concentration of her Semblance, and she could feel her aura struggling to complete the process.</p><p>While her aura reserves had grown massively with each child she created once she had discovered she was able to draw on the aura of her nearby children to supplement her own, and considering her childrens’ auras were self sustaining, it meant that as long as she was around her children she had a gigantic reserve of aura to draw upon.</p><p>But those massive reserves were starting to dwindle as she worked with a degree of focus for an ungodly number of hours on the one girl, determined to get every single cell and nerve perfectly and precisely right, with no room or tolerance for failure of any kind.</p><p>She had to get it right, and she was so close.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, the cells and synapses all clicked into place and connected, and she jolted in intense surprise when the girl’s aura immediately rushed into the new section of brain and incorporated it, healing it and recovering it as if it was part of her own body.</p><p>Operating on a body that had an active aura was…</p><p>She could <em> never </em>have predicted the effect it would have. How much it had changed the procedure, and how much easier it had made it.</p><p>Making a very important mental note to keep her subjects alive from now on, despite the agony they would be in from their bones and organs being removed, she began the final part of the evolution process, which took a massive amount of aura to do every single time, as she began to spread her aura through the new black flesh of the girl’s body and infuse her will and soul into it, the black flesh responding to the fact she was the source of it and the dormant sections of her aura she had infused into every part of the body connecting with hers.</p><p>Feeling the connection solidify in her own mind, she began to close up the wound, regrowing the girl’s beautiful hair, before she opened her eyes in a jolt of surprise and looked down. While she was used to her children’s hair darkening into an almost black grey from the influence of her aura, this was different, with the girl’s once vibrant red hair turning into a shining and pure midnight black, far richer in colour than any of her other children and almost as dark as her own.</p><p>The blue of her eyes had been replaced with gorgeous emerald green, but veins and swirls of black <em> and red </em>ebbed underneath the surface, traces of the girl’s aura still present and connecting with the new energy inside of her. The girl’s skin paled into a perfect and beautiful white, and all signs of scars and impurities on her body washed away as the black flesh perfected her awakening.</p><p>Breathing deeply and rapidly in amazement at the difference, Delilah’s mouth fell open slightly in complete bewilderment at the transformation. The girl’s aura was <em> strong </em>, and had bonded to Delilah’s own, along with the energy of the black flesh.</p><p>...she could never have expected a reaction like this.</p><p>But there was one last step, and this was where it could all go wrong.</p><p>Closing her eyes again, her hands shaking in excitement and anticipation, Delilah placed her hands on the girl’s temples again, and washed a wave of aura into her brain, sending a massive amount of black and green energy into her synapses that had been dormant and actively dead for ten hours since she had begun.</p><p> </p><p>The girl gasped to life underneath Delilah’s touch, coughing wildly and her new body spasming in a seizure as everything reconnected, brand new organs coming online and dealing with the fact they were already bonded and acclimated to the new genetics, with no chance of rejection. While laying on her back, her wings spasmed in the impulse to spread, but despite the jolt it sent through her body they failed and instead she simply groaned and coughed again.</p><p>“Easy, easy…” Delilah walked around to her side, placing her hand softly on the girl’s cheek to soothe her as the girl’s eyes flicked around wildly in a panic, stimulation being too much for her suddenly revived brain to handle immediately, but eventually the cyclone inside of her head faded and she was able to focus.</p><p>Looking down at her new daughter, Delilah’s heart was racing and her breath was coming in massive deep breaths at a dangerously rapid pace. This girl underneath her touch was no mere thrall, she was something else entirely, Delilah could feel it. Her energy inside of her, the black flesh responding, and the girl’s own red aura still active and swirling with all the other energy as the section of her own brain incorporated the new flesh of the Huntsman’s, seeming to absorb the extra added ability to rejuvenate and generate an aura.</p><p>The reserves of the girl on her own were incredible, even without taking into account she was able to draw on the aura of her siblings and her mother nearby. Two brain sections able to focus on regenerating and manipulating aura, Delilah couldn’t wait to see just how fast the girl could heal.</p><p>And, if either one of the two main parts of her experiment had worked.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re okay…” She whispered softly and gently, stroking her daughter’s cheek with her thumb lightly, and the girl’s eyes immediately locked onto hers.</p><p>Her daughter’s eyes had remained the vibrant mixture of green, black, and red. They were utterly mesmerising to look at. Inside the gaze was the same complete adoration and <em> worship </em> that all of her children looked at her with, a <em> complete </em>subservience and submission, but there was...so much more.</p><p> </p><p>“Mother…”</p><p> </p><p>Delilah’s heart stopped in her chest, not that she really needed it to beat anymore anyway, as the word softly left her daughter’s lips.</p><p>She could <em> speak </em> . Which meant she could <em> think </em>. Which meant…</p><p>
  <em> ‘Oh my god…’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Hey baby. How are you feeling?” Delilah asked tentatively, keeping the kind expression on her face while trying her best to hide her manic and wild excitement.</p><p>“Sore...but amazing.” The girl smiled, and it turned into a wild and manic giggle, then a cackle of laughter that had her writhing around on the table. Delilah almost went to undo the bindings on her wrists and ankles when the girl simply snapped through the cuffs and straps like they were nothing, and was free.</p><p>Sitting up in a jolt and standing, the girl spun in amused circles and ran her hands over herself, examining her body, and her breathing came out rapidly and excitedly, before she spoke in what was almost a sickly and disturbing <em> purr. </em></p><p>“Oh I <em>like</em> what you’ve done, mum…”</p><p>“Thank you honey.” Delilah smiled gently, before freezing in surprise when the girl hugged her tightly, giggling manically and wildly, and Delilah hesitated a few moments before hugging her back, still in shock.</p><p>Letting her mother go and stepping back, the girl spun on the spot a few times again, testing her balance, before she concentrated a moment and slowly spread her wings. Delilah waited for the screams of agony, but apart from what was clearly a sore wince, there was no expression of pain.</p><p>“Do they hurt?...”</p><p>“A little.” The girl winced. “But they just feel stiff. Once I stretch them a bit they should be okay. God they look cool. I <em> love </em> the red. Was that your idea? From what I can feel in your mind, your aura does <em> green </em>when you evolve us.”</p><p>Delilah blinked and froze for a moment. “Feel in my mind?...”</p><p>“Yeah mum, it’s like…” The girl frowned, concentrating, and Delilah felt what almost seemed to be fingers stroking her aura. “It’s like I can...I don’t know. I can feel you. And my brothers and sisters.”</p><p>“Can you...<em> talk </em> to them? Like I can?” Delilah’s eyes were wide and her voice was no longer able to sound composed properly, coming out in a breath.</p><p>“I think so? It feels strange…” The girl concentrated for a moment, and a few seconds later one of the thralls that had been mindlessly wandering around outside came into the room, but the movement was jerky and slow as if the message was jumbled.</p><p>“It seems it’ll take practice.” Delilah was trying to keep her voice soft and certain, but she was almost in a manic panic at how above and beyond her expectations the experiment had gone. Her daughter, her newest daughter, was… “You’re incredible, baby.”</p><p> </p><p>To her amazement, the girl <em> blushed </em>, and a wave of embarrassment and joy came through the mental connection as the girl retracted her wings entirely and folded her hands in front of herself, smiling shyly.</p><p>“Thanks mum...but uhh.” The girl scrunched up her face and looked down at herself. “Any chance I could have some clothes? It’s cold.”</p><p>The random comment had Delilah burst out into laughter, finally venting the pent up manic tension that had been in her, and her daughter grinned happily as her mother finally vented the panic and excitement that had been building up. Smirking in satisfaction that it had worked, the girl walked forward and hugged her mum again, and this time Delilah didn’t hesitate before hugging her back.</p><p>“We have a lot to do, sweetie.” Delilah said softly, pressing a proud kiss to the girl’s ice-cold forehead, and the girl nodded.</p><p>“I know. My sister has seen another village relatively nearby, tiny and isolated. Want me to go deal with it so it’s ready when you get to it? It shouldn’t be too hard.”</p><p>“Soon, once I’ve finished with the people here. And first we need you armed and armoured, <em> and </em>before you rush into danger anywhere we need to test your wings and your Semblance.”</p><p>“<em> Semblance </em>?” The girl’s eyes widened in excitement, and Delilah felt the brush along her mind again as the girl seemed to pick up on the memory of what happened and she gasped in sheer anticipation. “Oh gods that sounds cool. Let’s get to it!”</p><p>“Clothes first. I’m not sure if the cold can do anything to you, but let’s not do a trial by fire.” Delilah laughed, and the girl fell in step beside her as they walked out into the main room of the house. With all the houses in the town now abandoned and empty, finding clothes they could alter to fit the girl and accommodate for her wings would be easy enough.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey mum?”</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>“Before you evolved me...I…” The girl frowned, desperately trying to remember something, but it was a distant echo that was fading fast. “You mentioned changing my name. I can’t remember my old one, it’s...gone. So do I even <em> need </em>a new one?”</p><p>“Well, would you like one?”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing to think over it, the girl ended up nodding hesitantly, crossing her arms in thought. “I think so. But it might just be a lingering echo of the sort of creature I was before you fixed me up.”</p><p>Humming in thought, the explanation making sense, Delilah nodded in agreement to the theory as they left the house and began to make their way through the nearest building, searching for clothes that might fit.</p><p>“Would you like to pick one yourself? Or shall I do it?”</p><p>“I’d like to.” The girl smiled shyly, and at Delilah’s encouraging nod she closed her eyes tightly shut and thought about it, reaching her mind out for suggestions and ideas. Something answered her, an echo of a fading memory, and she reached out for it.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em> Ka...Kak...Kak- something.’ </em> The girl frowned, her old name on the tip of her tongue but refusing to come back entirely, the sounds of the syllables muffled and gone. But that was her <em> old </em>name, and now she was something new, something better.</p><p>The old her was the template, but she was the work of art, so why not evolve her original name as well?</p><p>“How about Kakra?”</p><p> </p><p>Raising her eyebrows at the suggestion, Delilah caught on to what her daughter was thinking immediately, and she nodded in approval. So her daughter had imagination and innovation as well. She could <em> think. </em>And if she had sentiment, that meant there were at least echoes of emotion there. For now. But from her connection to her daughter, she could tell they were fading.</p><p>There was no way of knowing just how much or how little her daughter would end up being able to feel. Human emotions might fall away, but the urges and instincts of the black flesh within her would remain. Anger, hate, potentially other carnal emotions like mania or lust or disgust. There was no way of knowing what else.</p><p>Delilah would have to test her obedience and loyalty, but she felt the worship all her children felt for her infused into the very <em> being </em> and <em> soul </em>of her new daughter. The worship and reverence was absolute, but she would still have to be studied and trialled.</p><p>The girl’s soul was her’s. Made out of her. Despite how independent she <em> seemed </em>, she was made out of Delilah’s soul and flesh, an extension of her will. Delilah could feel it.</p><p> </p><p>But in the meantime, mulling over the name, Delilah nodded with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Kakra works. It suits you.”</p><p>“You think so?” Kakra smiled shyly, running a hand through her perfect black hair and looking away. Delilah stepped to her and cupped her cheek, guiding her to look into her eyes, and she smiled encouragingly.</p><p>“I do think so. Come on...Kakra, let’s get you some clothes."</p><p>“Okay mum.” Kakra smiled shyly again, her eyes thankful and shy, and she followed Delilah as they continued their search.</p><p> </p><p>As the two made their way through the houses, eventually finding pants and solid boots that fit, and then a thick shirt and jacket that would be easy enough to alter to work with her wings, Delilah felt as Kakra’s aura continued to recharge from the operation, reaching full capacity after around an hour.<br/>The influence of the Huntman’s remnants meant her aura recharged as slowly as his did, but her reserves were simply gigantic, even larger than Delilah’s own, and once again that was <em> before </em>she tapped into the reserves she had access to from her siblings.</p><p>Once she was fully dressed, altering the clothes taking another couple of hours, Kakra stood in the middle of the town square and stretched her wings as wide as they could go to work out the soreness, before retracting them and staring her mother in the eye determinedly.</p><p> </p><p>“I want to get started.”</p><p> </p><p>Taking her in for a moment, Delilah was aware of the <em> lower </em>power limits of what her new daughter was capable of. Easily stronger than her other children in terms of pure physical strength, including the larger children specially made to be practically unstoppable, she’d also be faster, and with an active brain it meant her dexterity and reflexes would be off the charts.</p><p>There would be limitations, she wasn’t perfect and the wavering in her aura showed that, occasionally flickering like static, and her connection to her body was a bit off as well. Finally, her connection to her siblings and mother wasn’t as strong as it could be.</p><p>But she was far better than Delilah’s expectations.</p><p>It was time to find out her upper limits, and Delilah looked her in the eyes and nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Run wild. Anything inside <em> yourself </em> you damage, I can heal. If you want to destroy any siblings to test your power, I can make more. <em> Go for it, </em> Kakra.”</p><p>A reaction she wasn’t expecting was for Kakra to begin giggling in that same manic and wild way she had since she’d woken up, a massive fanged grin breaking out on her face as her lips spread unnaturally wide and she clenched her fists at her side.</p><p>“Watch me.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And here we go for Delilah...everything changes for her now. She's managed it.</p><p>On a side note: GOD DAMMIT ROOSTERTEETH. I had Delilah's WHOLE PLOTLINE written out before the reveal of the Hound. Now people might think I'm a copycat and I'm sour about it! Ah well.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Players In A Rigged Game</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The remaining members of Team SPKZ are each forced to make their own unique moves in the struggle against the political webs of Atlas.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The sounds of Atlesian high society were always the same, as cold and calculated conversation sounded throughout the large ballroom, people mingling around in their own versions of battle armour in the form of suits and dresses tailored to cut imposing figures without being aggressive. It was a battlefield that you needed to be raised into if you were to be any good at it, and forced to enjoy it if you had any intention of surviving it.<br/>Ever since the fall of Beacon and global communications had gone down, formal parties and gatherings had grown more and more frequent as the high society of Atlas attempted to find out where each of them sat in this new status quo, everything mixed around and shuffled in a way that Atlas couldn’t tolerate.</p><p>Snakes trading power with spiders, in the guise of balls and champagne and laughter so rehearsed that it felt slimy on the skin to hear it. It was a new world now, and instead of being concerned about the people who were going to suffer, these balls were instead to decide who was going to thrive. The trade embargo didn’t just hurt profits, it had put hundreds of people down in Mantle out of a job and in danger of starving on the streets.</p><p>But the people in the large room didn’t care about that, most weren’t even aware of it, and those that were aware of it were able to callously disregard it.</p><p> </p><p>For the most part.</p><p> </p><p>Standing by one of the large tables of gourmet finger food and constantly refilled and replaced glasses of champagne or other fine wines, Sunny took a sip from his glass and winced as it went down wrong, having never developed a taste for champagne but determined to have at least <em> some </em>alcohol in his system if he was going to survive these nights. As the heir to the Whistlewind family, he was expected to attend, and as a veteran of the Fall Of Beacon it was also a prestigious deal for him to do so, representing the grit and strength of Atlas Academy.</p><p>Scowling in a flash of disgust before instantly hiding it and returning his performance mask to his face, he gave a polite smile when he made eye contact with the right people but also made sure not to talk to anyone for more than a few minutes if he could help it.</p><p>He had made an appearance, and was gradually speaking to all the right people, answering the same questions about the battle and hearing the same rehearsed and false condolences about his lost teammate over and over again, each time making him angrier and more disgusted.</p><p> </p><p>It had occasionally been hard to control his body temperature and prevent himself from heating up, but he had practice for these sorts of occasions.</p><p> </p><p>As the band began to play, the dance floor cleared for those who wished to dance, polite waltzes between the right people occurring, though there were also many couples who used the dancing to escape The Game, and he could see them taking mental and emotional breaks in their eyes so they didn’t snap and kill someone in the room. Most people hate the Game, deep down, but there was no other way to retain power or position here in the large halls of the wealthy of Atlas. Despite what people outside of Atlas might think, money only meant so much here. Money got you into the room, but after that it was all about your charm and cunning when it came to gaining power and getting the things you wanted.</p><p> </p><p>If Sunny was honest with himself, he had a slight respect for those who were good at it. While the Game itself disgusted him and was abhorrent to his morals, there was a deep and complicated skill and determination when it came to being good at it, so he could respect those who had mastered it. To him, it struck him as being a lot like military strategy and tactics, with maneuver and counter-maneuver.</p><p>Which <em> was </em>something he was good at, but he refused to play the Game, even though he knew he was meant to.</p><p> </p><p>Running fingers along his dress armour, he gave a grim smile to his own thoughts. Dressed up in a formal version and cut of his regular armour, it was designed to have the same appearance but with no padding or protection, stitched inside of the finest materials available. But it was a form of armour all the same, and the small medal on his chest was the weapon, a medal acknowledging him as a veteran of Beacon who had<em> ‘taken lives under the strain of protecting the innocent, and suffered great loss in the line of duty’. </em></p><p>A shimmering silver reminder that he’d killed people as a student.</p><p>A medal awarded because his partner, his best friend, had been killed in combat.</p><p> </p><p>What an <em> honour. </em></p><p> </p><p>He had wanted to use his Semblance to melt it right back into Ironwood’s hand.</p><p> </p><p>But it was a part of his armour, a weapon to use in the Game as a tool of prestige that few others could counter. There were a few other students who had it in the room, but barely a dozen, with there only being a few students in the Academy who were high enough in the societal food chain to be at such a party anyway. There were even a few students who had come to Atlas after the destruction of Beacon being invited as ‘honored guests’ by whoever was throwing each party. A couple of refugee students from Vale were present tonight, including Jade Escaria from Team ORNJ who Sunny had fought in the doubles round of the tournament.</p><p>While they had met eyes and acknowledged each other, no words had been said, with Jade and her one remaining teammate Nicole being guests of the Milvana family, who were friends with the Escaria family. The web of who knew who in Atlas was a convoluted web of red threads and frustration, but Sunny had been forced to memorise it as best as he could whenever alterations were made to it. All members of the Game had to memorise it, and with Jade’s family being aligned with the Milvana family, it meant that Sunny as a Whistlewind interacting with her would be politically significant.</p><p> </p><p>Thinking over it all and keeping the web inside his mind, Sunny found himself missing the Academy a great deal. Training, studying, not having to worry about any of this sort of thing. Going out drinking with Zav, sitting in the workshop while Petyr and Kirian tinkered with their equipment for hours on end, with him simply reading and chatting. But now those days were over, and he had to move on and get over it if he was going to survive the world he had been avoiding for so long.</p><p>As his eyes flicked around at each of the veteran students present, finding them in the crowd, he saw scars on most of their faces, and the absence of team members for some of them was obvious and painful. The losses of the battle had been severely understated in the official Atlas reports to the public, wanting to put on a strong front, but in truth not many teams had returned with all four members, and those that <em> did </em> return with all four didn’t return unscarred. <br/>The casualties, both deaths and injuries, had been enough to make Sunny nauseas when he found out the totals.</p><p> </p><p>As he glanced around the room, he saw General Ironwood attempting to meet his stare to get his attention, and when they met eyes the General subtly gestured for Sunny to join him where he was talking with one of the members of the council, along with one of the other higher-ranked members of the military who Sunny recognised as Major Harold Omarian.</p><p>Finishing his glass of champagne in one more gulp, he placed it down on the correct silver tray and adjusted his uniform, briskly and formally making his way over to join the conversation, Ironwood gesturing to invite him in and speaking to the others.</p><p> </p><p>“Councilwoman Camilla, this is Sunny Whistlewind of Team SPKZ. Major Omarian, you two are already familiar.”</p><p>“We are indeed, you look recovered Mr Whistlewind.” Harold said formally, while Camilla gave Sunny a soft smile.</p><p>“It’s good to meet you Mr Whistlewind, my most sincere condolences for your loss.” Camilla offered her hand politely, and Sunny gave it a respectful shake.</p><p>“Thank you ma’am. Petyr was…” He gave a strained smile. “He...is missed.”</p><p> </p><p>Major Omarian gave a gruff nod of agreement, his hands behind his back, as he met Sunny’s eye as well.<br/>“Indeed. Always tough to lose a comrade, Whistlewind. I hope the rest of your team are recovering well?”</p><p>“They are, sir.” Sunny lied through his <em> fucking </em>teeth, knowing that the other two had practically shut down, with Zav barely leaving his home, with his scroll only turned on twice a day, and Kirian spending full twenty-four hour periods in the several academy workshops. “We will be back to form when it is time to return to our duties, ready to make our deceased comrade proud.”</p><p>“Sunny has done a remarkable job every step of the way.” Ironwood gave Sunny a nod that was proud on the surface, but the look in his eyes was nothing but concern. He was just as aware as Sunny was of the mental state of his teammates. “Now Sunny, the reason I wished for us all to speak was to bring up the subject of your early enlistment that we’ve been discussing the past six months.”</p><p>“Early enlistment?” Camilla raised her eyebrows, folding her hands behind her back and eyeing Sunny up, taking him in, before looking back to Ironwood with a cautious frown. “What are you suggesting, General?”</p><p>“Mr Whistlewind here is one of the most promising students we’ve seen in quite a few years, Councilwoman.” Ironwood gave her a confident look, and nodded to the Major as well before giving a proud look to Sunny. “A level not since Specialist Winter Schnee, or Specialist Arthur Lance. With the council’s assessment, along with your own Major due to your familiarity with his capabilities, I would like to give Mr Whistlewind early nomination for advanced training in the Specialist program.”</p><p> </p><p>Both Harold and Camilla were quiet for some moments, giving each other a glance, with Camilla giving Harold the lead for the man to speak, and the Major cleared his throat.</p><p>“Well, I’ve certainly been aware of his progress, due to assisting in the training of his Semblance. I’ll agree that his potential certainly falls within the standards of the Specialist unit. But he’s young.”</p><p>“Quite young indeed.” Councilwoman Camilla nodded in agreement with the Major, before her face softened and she looked to Sunny. “And what about <em> your own </em> opinion, Mr Whistlewind? Is this your ambition?”</p><p> </p><p>Hesitating for a few moments, Sunny tried to hide it as he sucked in a breath and swallowed. Becoming an Atlesian Specialist had been all he had ever wanted, hoping to one day rise above any rank achieved by his family in the past. His father had been a Specialist, and his grandfather, going back to the formation of the Specialist unit itself. The Whistlewinds were one of the legacy families of the Atlesian Military, going all the way back to the beginning.</p><p>And Sunny wanted to rise higher than any of them ever had.</p><p>It was a selfish and relatively arrogant ambition, and he knew that, but it was all he had wanted, and he’d never quite been sure why. His family had never pressured him or encouraged it, he hadn’t been raised specifically for military duty, but he’d signed up for the academy.</p><p>And now, three years later, he was an experienced student with dozens of training missions under his belt, was an accomplished fighter in the combat rankings, showing enough potential that Ironwood himself had approached him for early graduation, believing his time wasted with continued basic training.</p><p> And...now he was a veteran of the Battle Of Beacon.</p><p>He’d had his first taste of what his life would end up being day in and day out if he enlisted. And it had included a sacrifice he could never have imagined paying such a level of cost for.</p><p>That was the life.</p><p>And more battles were coming.</p><p> </p><p>Folding his hands behind his back, he gave Camilla a confident nod, his inner fire determined and blazing behind his eyes. Petyr’s sacrifice would <em> not </em> be for nothing. <br/>And this was how to make it happen.</p><p>“Yes Councilwoman, I want to serve my country. After what I saw, it’s what I want more than anything.”</p><p> </p><p>Seeing the look in his eyes, Camilla narrowed her eyes only slightly, enough that it was on the border of being impolite, and she thinned her lips to hide concern for the boy in front of her. But he seemed determined, and both Ironwood and Omarian seemed to approve. And while Ironwood was unpredictable, she knew it was hard to earn Major Omarian’s approval.</p><p>“With your nomination General, and your consent Mr Whistlewind, I will raise it with the other members of the council, and we shall organise an assessment.” Councilwoman Camilla gave a stern nod, fixing Ironwood with a cautious look. “Agreed, General?”</p><p>“Agreed, Councilwoman. Thank you. I shall have all of his transcripts prepared for the council’s perusal and assessment by the time of the next meeting in three days.” Ironwood nodded in gratitude, before looking to Sunny. “Do you have any concerns or questions, Mr Whistlewind?”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a few moments, Sunny knew he was about to break formal protocol, but he couldn’t give less of a shit considering the subject.</p><p>“I would like to nominate my teammate Kirian Phase for the same consideration, sir.”</p><p> </p><p>Thinking over it for a few moments, Ironwood had to hide a flash of satisfaction. He had already considered the possibility. Kirian was <em> ruthlessly </em>intelligent, with his major drawback being his consistent and inherent lack of emotional awareness on a level almost as cold as what Ironwood’s Semblance made him in short bursts. But with Kirian it was constant. He wasn’t a sociopath or psychopath, but he toed the line.</p><p>It would make him an excellent soldier, with a cold and detached nature shielding him from hesitation and sentiment. </p><p>Ironwood had considered it before, but nominating such a psychologically complex candidate would imply things about Ironwood’s preferences and ambitions, so he had held off. So Sunny nominating him was a golden opportunity to get what he wanted without having to push his limit by asking for it himself.</p><p>So he raised an eyebrow and looked to Major Omarian, who was in charge of the Research &amp; Development wing of the military and would be able to make the most use of Kirian. Major Omarian had narrowed eyes and a contemplative look on his face for a few moments.</p><p>The man gave a short and curt nod.</p><p>“It <em> would </em>be detrimental to disband their team entirely, I agree. Very well, I suppose that is acceptable, but it will require further consideration. I am aware of his reputation. Councilwoman?”</p><p> </p><p>Camilla sighed, feeling slightly ambushed, but she only had eyes for whatever looks passed through Sunny’s eyes. The boy was perfectly composed, having clearly been trained well to play the Game by his family, but like all young people he couldn’t yet hide what he was feeling from his eyes, and there was a firm desperation in his look.</p><p>He knew what he desperately wanted, but he <em> also </em>knew just how good of an idea it was.</p><p> </p><p>So, hesitating, Camilla nodded. “Very well. But no more, General. The influence and authority of your Specialists are growing to concern those on the council who are not as familiar with you as Sleet and I am.”</p><p>“Understood, Councilwoman.” General Ironwood nodded, having expected the response, and he looked to Sunny. “Very well, Mr Whistlewind. You’re dismissed, and you shall be summoned for your interview and assessment within the week.”</p><p>“Thank you, sir. It’s a privilege I hope I have demonstrated that I am capable of.” Sunny gave a polite nod of gratitude to each of them. “Sir, Ma’am, enjoy the party.”</p><p>“You as well, Mr Whistlewind.” Camilla gave him a soft smile, meanwhile the Major merely nodded politely.</p><p> </p><p>Stepping away, Sunny let out a deep and stressed breath the moment he was turned away from them and it was hidden, blinking away the dryness that had come into his eyes from holding so many stares for so long. Walking as briskly as he could while still remaining polite, he grabbed another glass of champagne and took a reasonably deep sip from it, also bordering on being impolite.</p><p>His heart still hammering in his chest, he stayed still and took deep breaths to calm down.</p><p>That had felt like an ambush, delicately planned by the General for the man to get exactly what he wanted. The Specialist Corp answered directly to the military, specifically the General. While Specialists were able to be distributed to the other branches of the military in other roles, with Kirian almost certainly going to be assigned to the R&amp;D Department, ultimately they answered to the General.</p><p>Huntsmen whose sole loyalty was to the military, and not to the code and cause of why they had trained to be Huntsmen in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>But for Sunny’s and Kirian’s long-term plan, it was where they needed to be.</p><p> </p><p>Finishing his glass of champagne quickly enough that if anyone had noticed it would have shown a lack of dignity and restraint, Sunny let out a sigh as the blanket of it washed over his nerves and soothed them. With his sheer mass, and the massive size of his aura, it was an active chore to get drunk, so it was safe to drink so much just to stay calm. He could go through a dozen glasses and still be only relaxed and nothing further.</p><p>It certainly came in handy at events like this.</p><p>As he was looking around the room again, mulling over what he should be doing next, a flash of silver hair to his left caught his attention, and he glanced over. His eyes widened as he caught Weiss Schnee talking with a strained polite smile to a few associates of her father’s, the girl wearing a gorgeous silver dress, and the mark of her veterancy of Beacon instead of a military medal had instead been modified into a broach that was attached to her dress, fitting perfectly into the theme and fit of the outfit while still clearly being the recognition of her veterancy.</p><p>Sunny suspected that was her father’s insistence, wanting her to present as a Schnee that had suffered instead of a Huntress that had bravely fought.</p><p>What hurt Sunny the most in the situation was that it would be politically horrifying if he was to speak to her, with the terrible relations between their fathers. Granted, Jacques Schnee was enemies with plenty of fathers and brothers and frankly almost everyone in the city, but it would still be politically disastrous for the girl’s reputation, as it would show her as deviating from her family. Letting out a sigh, Sunny’s face went horrifically sad as he looked at how miserable she was.</p><p>The girl’s ice cold mask was attached perfectly, underneath her polite smiles she was pure white ice, no feeling or soft edges. Perfectly protecting herself.</p><p>It made something in his heartstrings tug.</p><p> </p><p>He stared too long, and eventually in her own casing of the room she noticed and they locked eyes, and while she kept the ice in her eyes and face firmly intact she bravely risked a small nod as he ever so slightly raised his glass in recognition and support in as miniscule a movement as he could get away with. And that small simple thing was all they could risk.</p><p>But it was enough.</p><p> </p><p>All over the room, he knew that the different students, the different veterans, had all taken turns noticing each other and acknowledging each other. In a strange way he couldn’t explain, it was comforting to have them in the room, and something in his chest unclenched.</p><p> </p><p>The clock struck eleven, and the late hour finally made it acceptable for people to begin leaving, and Sunny quickly made his way over to give a polite goodbye to the hosts with a smile and a nod, before leaving at a brisk yet composed walk.</p><p>Making his way down the drive, he grabbed his scroll from his pocket to text his driver to pick him up and get him home where he’d be able to drink something far stronger and be alone in his room, before he blinked when a text blipped onto his scroll.</p><p>On a local network, scrolls could find each other if their radios were on the same frequency, and out of pure habit Sunny tended to leave his on the student one, meaning other students could find his scroll locally if they wanted to.</p><p>Someone had clearly been looking for it, as a text came through.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Be safe. If you ever need us, call. Our families will get over it - Jade.” </em>
</p><p>Attached was Jade’s number and also Nicole’s, and he quickly added them both to his regular contacts, and they immediately accepted it on their own scrolls. He typed out a quick reply to Jade.</p><p>
  <em> “You two aren’t alone. - Sunny.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Making his way down, thinking to himself, he changed his mind about how to finish his night as his driver pulled up and he hopped into the backseat.</p><p>“Change of plans. Atlas Academy, please.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The large workshops of the academy were almost entirely silent this time of night, with most of the lights turned off except for those just above the areas in use, with most of the counters and machines coated in shadow. The last team that had been conducting late-night maintenance had left, and walked past the final person in the workshop without any acknowledgement of him, completely used to his constant presence.<br/>Without any expression, Kirian bent over his completely disassembled weapon, sorting through components and blueprints as he did every night and day, changing his design over and over again. In the close to two months since arriving home, he had rebuilt his weapon fourteen times in entirely new designs, each one only slightly less of a disappointment than the prior one.</p><p>But it wasn’t frustrating or enraging.</p><p>It wasn’t anything at all except for something he needed to do.</p><p> </p><p>The latest designs were far more slimmed and stripped down, plenty of the chambers and capabilities removed, as he considered an entirely different approach to what he wanted his weapon to achieve. The original intent of the design was a weapon that could rotate and switch what it could do in over two dozen interchangeable setups that could accommodate for any combat situation. And while that design had achieved its goal, it was massive and debilitatingly heavy, and had slowed him down. With his perfect memory, he noted all the setups he had never used, and removed them from the next design, slimming down the device.<br/>And that had been the process ever since as it slimmed down further. But eventually he was considering scrapping setups he <em> did </em>use just to make it more maneuverable, yet that defeated the point of the device entirely.</p><p>So now he was considering an entirely different approach.</p><p> </p><p>And it was inspired by something it gave him strange feelings to look at, as he glanced down the bench to where Petyr’s drones and harness were laid out. Kirian had found Petyr’s blueprints and had begun to study them intently, always amazed at just how much technical genius the man had put into every idea and design. The drone system was an achievement that would never be replicated, as no-one else had a Semblance that could do it.<br/>But the layout of it had given Kirian an idea on how he could utilise all of his weapons' layouts while also maintaining a solid enough center of mass that he could run and move properly, without being thrown hideously off balance. It would take weeks to construct just the first prototype if he tested each section properly, but it wasn’t like he had anything else to do. So he stared down at the rudimentary blueprints he had digitally designed, spinning around a three-dimensional model and studying it.</p><p>Instead of each layout in the one device forced to balance on the one arm, he should be able to spread them out across his mass. Slimmed down, with available settings on each arm, other larger ones over his shoulders so the muscles of his shoulders and back could handle the larger amounts of extra weight. It would require a form of supportive exoskeleton, which was the hardest part of the design itself, even if it wouldn’t be particularly hard to construct.</p><p> </p><p>Petyr’s design of an interchangeable harness with slots for each drone was ingenious, but Kirian didn’t have that option, with each section of his device going to be forced to be stationary, so his exoskeleton had to be far more rigid and supportive than Petyr’s. Far heavier.</p><p>While Petyr’s mastery of software was unmatched, Kirian had dominance over engineering and mechanics. So such a design wasn’t beyond him. It would just be time consuming.</p><p>...<em> very </em>time consuming.</p><p> </p><p>Spinning the blueprint again and studying each section, he glanced along the massive table he’d completely taken over since arriving home, and studied the components. Again. Even though he knew exactly what was on the table.</p><p>Blinking in exhaustion, he closed his eyes for a few moments and took a few deep breaths to wake himself back up. He’d go home soon and get some sleep. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been down here this burst, he never checked the time, but it had been quite a while.</p><p>Meaning it had been a while since he last ate, and he could feel that in his body as well.</p><p> </p><p>Bringing the blueprint up so it was a projected hologram and he could spin it properly, he enlarged the sections he’d designed for the legs and studied them properly, before making his way over to the machinery nearby and starting the work of manufacturing the several pieces. While the machines were able to fabricate the smaller and more delicate components automatically, which he set them to do so, he got to work on the larger components and plating by hand, needing something to do with his hands and eyes.</p><p>The legs alone would take days to get right, having to imitate the bones and joints of the ankle and knee using metal to fabricate a supportive exoskeleton…</p><p>But it was worth doing. He needed to be lighter.</p><p>Faster.</p><p> </p><p>The grinding of the machines drowned out most of his thoughts as he continued working, his eyes deadened and his skin pale from exhaustion and malnourishment, and when he noticed himself swaying on the spot he turned off the grinder he was using and rested his head against it to support himself, closing his eyes and taking several deep breaths again.</p><p>Swaying on the spot, he almost dozed off while on his feet, until he was brought back to reality when the automatic doors to the workshops slid open with a hiss and there was a loud sigh.</p><p>He didn’t move until someone put their hand on his shoulder and turned him around.</p><p>Sunny sighed and grabbed Kirian’s arm, leading him over to one of the chairs in the room and lowering him to sit down, the other boy offering no resistance as he did it. After a few moments, Kirian came back to reality properly, waking up again, and he looked at Sunny with lucid eyes and pulled his arm from Sunny’s grip gently with a small nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Sunny.”</p><p>“When was the last time you ate, brother?”</p><p>Kirian thought back, letting his Semblance construct a timeline out of his memory, and he sighed knowing that Sunny was going to be annoyed.</p><p>“Sixty hours.”</p><p>“...and the last time you slept?”</p><p>“Just before that.”</p><p> </p><p>There was silence for a while, as Sunny closed his eyes in severe concern as he got a slug of panic in the gut for his friend’s wellbeing, while Kirian simply watched with a cold mind and an exhausted body. This was getting ridiculous, and it broke Sunny’s heart. While they all knew that most of Kirian was made of ice, there were some things that hit a person anyway, and he was refusing to acknowledge it or deal with it.</p><p> </p><p>“Kirian...this has to stop.” Sunny said quietly, giving his teammate a sad look, and Kirian didn’t have it in him to meet his eyes.</p><p>“We won’t be off-duty forever, Sunny. I need a weapon by then.”</p><p>“I know, and you’ll figure it. But not while starving and exhausted. You’ve lost like fifteen pounds. I can see it all over you.”</p><p>Nodding and shrugging to concede the point, Kirian stood shakily and stretched his arms above his head, finally noticing Sunny’s outfit, and he raised an eyebrow as he made his way through to the small break room, and began to make himself a coffee.</p><p>“Another party?”</p><p>“Just a small one, thankfully. But a productive one.” Sunny followed Kirian in and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“We’ve both been formally nominated for the Specialist program.”</p><p> </p><p>Catching Kirian by surprise wasn’t easy, but as exhausted as he was he startled at the news and his eyebrows rose as high as they could, and he turned his head to look at Sunny properly with a surprised look.</p><p>“How’d you swing that? That was an element we had on the back-burner.”</p><p>“Ironwood nominated me to Major Omarian and Councilwoman Camilla, and I basically implied that I won’t accept the position if you aren’t considered as well.” Sunny shrugged, and Kirian gave a smirk as he finished making his coffee, and he handed Sunny one as well.</p><p>“I’m touched. And they went for it?”</p><p>“Ironwood didn’t even hesitate.”</p><p> </p><p>Mulling over that, Kirian finished putting sugar and milk into his coffee and frowned as he stirred slowly. Their collective trust in Ironwood had shattered the night of the battle, for obvious reasons that were never going to fade, and they had begun their own long-term game against the man. While Sunny had to play the games of Atlas, Kirian didn’t, and so was free to psychoanalyse everyone involved on more cynical levels. Their plan required him getting into the R&amp;D department of the military so he could have access to their labs and fabricators.</p><p>But until then, Kirian was forced to take apart and rebuild his weapon over and over again, left alone with his thoughts. He was the processing machine that they fed data to and he in turn scrutinised and analysed it, and figured out responses.</p><p> </p><p>And. They. Didn’t. Trust. Ironwood.</p><p> </p><p>So Kirian frowned deeply as he took a sip, and then nursed his cup in his hands. “You think he wanted it to happen?”</p><p>“It’s never just been me he was interested in, when it came to our team. He’s wanted something from all four of us, I’m sure of it. I’m the soldier, you’re the registered genius, Petyr...well, he’s Petyr, and Zav’s Semblance is the most useful out of all of ours.”</p><p>“There’s no way Zav would be nominated for the program though.”</p><p>“God no, but that was part of the plan, right?”</p><p>Silent for a few moments, Kirian tapped his fingers on the side of his cup and bit the inside of his cheek, and he looked away. “When was the last time you heard from him?”</p><p>“I got an <em>‘I’m alive’</em> text yesterday morning.” Sunny sighed, shaking his own head in concern and looking down into his cup.</p><p>Kirian nodded. “Last one to me was a week ago.”</p><p> </p><p>They were both quiet for a few moments, Kirian looking away at the wall while Sunny looked down and swirled the coffee inside of his cup. The state of Zav was a concern for them both, the other boy had practically shattered after the events of the battle and had holed himself up in his home. But they knew he wasn’t just laying in bed, activity had been coming from his computer as he kept looking things up and researching them and compiling...<em> something. </em></p><p>Zavraii wasn’t intelligent academically like Sunny was, or logistically like Petyr or Kirian were, but he understood <em> people </em> to a level the other three could barely even fathom. He understood motivations and intentions, and the gaps in human perception and cognition. The boy could psychoanalyse anyone and not get any details wrong, and even en masse he understood people. Crowds and societies on both a small and a grand scale. The boy just <em> got </em> people, it was why he was so popular, he simply just <em> knew </em>how to not rock the boat, ever. But what had happened with Petyr had greatly wounded something in him, and whatever he was working on had him completely isolated, which was a state that the other two worried he wouldn’t be able to healthily sustain for much longer.</p><p>But whatever he was working on was likely going to be substantial, he wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. It was just impossible to figure out what it was.</p><p>They knew his credentials were being used to get into servers, but that was it.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think he’s doing?” Kirian voiced Sunny’s train of thought, and Sunny could only shrug helplessly.</p><p>“God knows. But he’s still onboard with the plan.”</p><p>“I hope so. We need him.” Gulping down the entirety of his coffee in one go, Kirian put his mug down and almost went to go back to the workbench when Sunny grabbed his arm and shook his head.</p><p>“Nope. You’re going home. You’re done.”</p><p>“I’m fine, Sunny. I don’t need parenting.”</p><p> </p><p>Putting his half-empty mug down, Sunny spun Kirian so they were facing each other, and put his hands on each of his friend’s shoulders.</p><p>“I know. But I need you put together. We have the assessments for our Specialist assignment in three or four days, and we get <em> one </em>shot at this. You need to rest, and eat.”</p><p> </p><p>Staying still in Sunny’s grasp for a few moments, Kirian sighed and nodded in resignation, knowing Sunny had a point. Their shot had arrived early, they hadn’t expected it for another month or two, but they had to take it. Everything hinged on getting accepted. So he nodded.</p><p>“Alright. You win.” Kirian reached into his pocket and thumbed his car keys, before looking down at his other hand which was shaking in exhaustion, and his eyes were blurred around the edges. “Can you give me a lift? I’m not sure I could drive.”</p><p> </p><p>Pulling Kirian into a hug, Sunny knew the boy wouldn’t hug him back, that wasn’t Kirian’s way, but Sunny squeezed him for a moment all the same and nodded.</p><p>“Let’s get you home. We can do this.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Three nights later, the evening before the day of his interview and assessment to become a Specialist, Sunny received a cryptic text on his scroll from a number that wasn’t just unfamiliar to him, but was actively encrypted. While not the sort of person to report weird events to the authorities, it was a natural response when red alert alarm bells went off in his brain before he even read the actual message itself. So, sitting at his desk in his room, he spun his scroll into his hand and opened it up to read it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Emergency meeting ASAP. Gate outside Briar Conservatory. Come alone with discretion. Trust word for reassurance; Chrysalis.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Frowning at his scroll and his heart skipping a few beats in anxiety, he sat back in his chair as he stared at the message and reread it a handful of times. There weren’t many people in Atlas who would be aware of Chrystal’s nickname, since it was a name local to the city of Vale and even then it wasn’t said much, so whoever sent it had to be <em> somewhat </em> familiar. It was a flag they had sent him to say they either knew Petyr well enough to know about his girlfriend, or they were familiar enough with Vale that it would be a connection.<br/>They may have sent it in the hopes it would get him to trust them, but it also succeeded greatly in making him nervous. Unsure what to do, he eventually found himself standing and throwing on a jacket and texting his personal driver, who happened to be one of the few people in the world that Sunny trusted entirely, trusting the man’s discretion and confidentiality, since if the tone of the message was any indication...discretion was needed.</p><p>Requesting to be dropped off at a street corner a block away from the conservatory, he took the drive in silence, keeping his anxiety under control.</p><p>Stepping out onto the sidewalk, he grabbed his scroll from his pocket before he began his walk and quickly texted Kirian.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Received an emergency summons by someone who used the trust word ‘Chrysalis’. Briar Conservatory. Will message my status afterwards and provide details.” </em>
</p><p>Less than a minute later he received a simple reply.</p><p>
  <em> “Got it. Keep me posted.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sliding his scroll away, he made his way towards the conservatory. The conservatory was a strange location, it had been an attempt by a local property owner to construct something that would raise land values in the area, wanting it to end up a popular spot for weddings, functions, or even just wanderings, but it had never had much success and now stood as an alien block of upper-class recreation in what was otherwise a relatively middle-class area, a poor area by Atlesian standards.<br/>But it was secluded and private, and identifiable enough to be easily located in emergencies, such as what was apparently right now.</p><p>Reaching the entrance gates to the conservatory, he wasn’t particularly surprised when his scroll blipped, and it was the encrypted number again.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Turn off your scroll. They could listen. Then head around to the staff door for the greenhouse hydrators.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Raising an eyebrow, secretly more than aware that it would be practically impossible for anyone to bug or intercept his scroll due to the several ‘upgrades’ that Petyr had given it, he wasn’t about to let anyone know that, so he complied and turned it off. Making his way through the winding hedges of the outside of the conservatory towards the central greenhouse, which technically still functioned and housed a wide variety of plants, and casually walking around to the door, he noted that it was ever so slightly ajar.</p><p>Giving one single glance around, he wasn’t expecting to see anyone, but his sharp eyes glanced over every tree and hedge, every potential observation spot, and picked out nothing of interest or concern. Satisfied, he stepped inside the greenhouse and closed the door behind him. While the lights inside of the hydrator maintenance room were turned off, there was a single light in the greenhouse itself that was glowing, providing a low amount of light that he hadn’t even been able to notice from outside.<br/>Stepping into the greenhouse proper and heading towards that area, he froze in his tracks and his eyebrows went up when he saw Winter Schnee of all people pacing back and forth slowly, her hands behind her back and her expression fixed in a cool frown. She noticed his approach and stopped in her pacing, looking towards him, and her lips thinned as she turned to face him properly, her hands still folded behind her back.</p><p> </p><p>“Mr Whistlewind. I appreciate your accommodation in the desire for discretion.”</p><p>“Ma’am.” Sunny gave a disciplined and polite nod, making sure to stand in a peculiar mixture of at attention and at ease in the one stance, which Winter noticed, and she scoffed.</p><p>“At-ease, Whistlewind. There’s nothing formal about us meeting here.”</p><p>Relaxing only slightly more, Sunny kept his hands by his sides and clearly in view, before frowning in suspicion and unease. “Why <em>am</em> I here? And how did you...how do you even <em> know </em>the significance of that word?”</p><p>“My sister was on good terms with Team SKTC at Beacon, I was alerted by her of the relations between Chrystal Wasara and Petyr Fevera soon upon my arrival to Beacon during the tournament.” Winter raised an eyebrow, the <em> barest </em>hint of amusement hidden in the expression. “While I do not partake in it, I do make sure to pay attention to gossip, Mr Whistlewind. Miss Wasara’s unscrupulous reputation was of note to me.”</p><p>“Why?” Sunny’s eyes narrowed. </p><p>He was on the backfoot here, Winter Schnee was one of the top ranking Specialists in the military, in fact she was considered the unofficial head of the entire unit, and she certainly deserved the authority. But her personal loyalty to the General was well known, and that had Sunny...nervous.<br/>Sunny was immediately on the defensive, his stance shifting slightly without him realising it and Winter’s sharp eyes picking up the shift immediately. Her lips thinned further and she lowered her eyebrow, relaxing her expression.</p><p>“The General does not know I am here, Mr Whistlewind. Nor am I here in any official capacity. I simply took note of Miss Wasara’s reputation and records at the time out of...personal interest.” Her words were each carefully clipped off, and he could tell there was no way she was going to budge and give any specific details, but he didn’t relax an inch.</p><p>“Then...what can I do for you? Why the secrecy?”</p><p>“Mr Whistlewind…I am aware of your nomination to the Specialist program, and your upcoming assessment tomorrow. In fact my personal opinion on the matter has been requested by both the General and the council. I have been following your progress for some time, due to the General’s persistent interest in your development.” Winter began to pace again slightly, before noticing she was doing it and stopping, frowning at him. “As an Atlesian Specialist myself, I know what it means to serve in the unit. And as I have it on good authority you are almost certainly going to be accepted, that means this is the last opportunity we may have for me to bring certain things to your attention without violating any regulations or laws.”</p><p> </p><p>Making his way over to one of the ornate stone counters that served as boundaries to prevent people from walking through the plants, he leaned against it and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at her. He was still nervous, and well aware he was at every disadvantage no matter what sort of game Winter was playing. The woman was powerful, smarter than him, influential, and allegedly had every drop of the family cunning that the Schnee’s were known and feared for.</p><p>So Sunny was...on edge.</p><p> </p><p>“Mr Whistlewind, I’m aware of the...friendship, you developed with my sister during your time at Beacon for the tournament.”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking in surprise, <em> that </em> being something completely out of the realm of anything he might have expected to come from the woman’s mouth, Sunny merely stared at her in static for a few moments until the woman huffed with the same frustrated composure as ever and raised an eyebrow at him to snap him out of it, and he straightened up.</p><p>After a brief pause, the expression on Winter’s face changed <em> entirely, </em>as an all-too-familiar mask slid into place, and Sunny immediately slid on his own version of it, his face cooling and composing.</p><p> </p><p>“Mr Whistlewind, my sister is a...point of concern, while she is present in Atlas. Her training as a Huntress has come along splendidly, but there are certain threats in this city she cannot defend herself from appropriately. Threats and detriments <em> not </em> of a physical nature.” Winter clenched her jaw, clearly wishing she could say more and say it all in blunter terms, but she was skirting the line of violating a thousand different codes of conduct as is, and even though she knew they were in total privacy she still had to tread carefully for the sake of giving them both deniability. She just had to hope that Sunny’s reputation was correct and he was smart enough to read between the lines.</p><p>She continued, her voice measured, but a hint of strain on the edges of it. “Since her return from Beacon after the horrific events, my sister’s...local environment...has been <em> insufficient </em>for her recovery from the ordeal.”</p><p>“Due to her return from Beacon and the fact that Atlas Academy is not currently in session, my sister has...been <em> encouraged </em>...to temporarily take up a position in the Schnee Dust Company. I believe she has taken up a position in the Logistics department, supervising and moderating shipments of refined dust between the refineries and the company’s contractors, including the military.”</p><p> </p><p>Making a humming sound of consideration, Sunny gave a relatively dismissive nod.</p><p>“That sounds like a stressful position for someone who is not in an adequate environment for recovery, especially in such a delicate time economically and politically.” Sunny’s own voice was measured, and Winter felt a flash of relief and <em> fierce </em> approval at the look of understanding hidden in the bottom layer of the boy’s eyes. <strong><em>He’d gotten it</em></strong>. “I hope that communication between the Company and the Military is efficient enough to alleviate any extra stress.”</p><p>“Indeed, Mr Whistlewind. Increased efficiency in the flow of communication between the SDC and the Military is currently vital, in fact I believe that the possibility of assigning a military liaison is being considered. A voluntary assignment, of course.”</p><p>Staring at each other silently for a long stretch of moments, Sunny thought it over. He knew how the Game was played, and if Weiss really was as miserable as she had seemed the other night, and was in as much pain and trouble as Winter was suggesting, then she’d definitely benefit from having someone she could trust nearby, at least for a while.</p><p>It <em> would </em> keep him out of combat, which he didn’t have a problem with whilever Zav was recovering <em> however </em> it was he was doing it, because their plan for now simply required both himself and Kirian getting the authority and access that ranks as Specialists would provide for them, and then playing the waiting game.</p><p>And, frankly, he liked Weiss.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at Winter, he could see the strain in her eyes of how much she was forcing herself to dodge and worm and wriggle. If she’d tried to have this conversation with him <em> after </em> he was accepted as a Specialist it would be such a <em> severe </em> professional conflict of interest that it would be grievously punishable, not to mention it would be considered an abuse of her authority.</p><p>And he suspected the only reason she hadn’t asked for this meeting earlier was because she’d been doing ruthless amounts of background research on him, since she’d demonstrated a few signs of it so far.</p><p>But the woman was looking to be practically in pain as she was forced to play the Game even in private, but she was doing it mostly for <em> his </em> sake. To protect him in the future if something were to go wrong.</p><p>He could see it in her face.</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t think of a more perfect assignment for a fresh recruit.”</p><p>The simple words, barely any dodging or cunning, slipped out of his mouth without any need to complicate them any further, and he saw as it hit Winter like whiplash that she instantly recovered from and composed herself, so quickly that the slip could almost be passed off as imaginary if Sunny didn’t trust his perception so much. But she still took a moment to regard him, before her eyes softened the barest hint and she let out a breath, some of the tension leaving her.</p><p>“That it would be. And whichever recruit agreed to take up such a position would be doing a great service to all parties involved, considering the times.”</p><p>Winter took a moment to hold his gaze and linger on it, keeping the bare hint of softness for a few moments before shielding it and straightening herself up, adjusting her gloves, and Sunny straightened up as well and stood with his hands behind his back. Winter made a show of checking her watch and tutting as if bothered by how time had escaped them.</p><p> </p><p>“Well Mr Whistlewind, I’m afraid I must be going. There <em> are </em> two assessments being conducted tomorrow regarding potential recruits into the Specialist program, and I am to review their transcripts once more before the night is done, so please excuse me.”</p><p>“Of course ma’am. I imagine I will enjoy the gardens for a while longer.” Sunny nodded, the meaning clear that he would linger so there was no chance of them being seen in the area together, and another flash of approval went through Winter’s eyes.</p><p> </p><p>As she stepped past him, she paused for a moment and spoke without looking over her shoulder at him, and he didn’t look over his either. Her voice had a tinge of softness to it that he could never have imagined coming from the woman, and it made her normally commanding and sharp voice sound gentle.</p><p>“They are both quite remarkable applicants from what I have reviewed of them so far. One of them in particular I have...incredibly high hopes for. Goodnight, Mr Whistlewind.”</p><p> </p><p>And with a few more paces, she was gone, and he heard the service room door swing closed with a click, leaving him alone in the conservatory that was silent except for the gentle trickling of the hydration system running between the numerous plant basins.</p><p>Sighing and running a hand over his face, he waited ten minutes, standing in place and letting himself be deep in thought, before he made his way back to the same street corner he’d arrived at and turned his scroll back on to text his driver.</p><p>The ride back to the family home was quiet as he simply sat in thought, looking out the window and a permanent frown on his face. Everything about that meeting had revealed something new, and Winter must have known that. The fact she had gone to such lengths to meet with him in secret revealed her weakness, the one thing that could get between her to break protocol, and the law, if she was worried enough; her sister.</p><p>Meanwhile Sunny also knew that the General had always intended on sending him into combat out in the deep freeze, his Semblance making him completely immune to any level of freezing cold, so if he was enlisted and then assigned to the liaison position it would show him just how much influence and pull that Winter personally had with the General himself, which would imply there were reasons for it, dependable enough ones that Winter was willing to use it for this.</p><p>And Winter would have known that it would tell Sunny all of that, which meant she considered it a risk worth taking to give him that sort of information, which meant she genuinely thought Weiss might be in enough trouble to warrant it. But if it wasn’t a physical threat, what was it? Why would Winter be concerned about Weiss working at her own family’s company? It was a problem that Sunny could easily unleash Kirian and Zav onto, if there was something untoward happening inside those offices.</p><p>But Winter would have known that there was the strong possibility that Sunny would go to his team out of curiosity, and Winter had implied that Kirian was looking good for his own acceptance into the Specialist program.</p><p>What <em> was </em>the woman playing at?</p><p> </p><p>Snorting when he realised that he was being played, used, and <em> asked </em> for help at the same time, by a woman smart enough that he couldn’t figure out what she was up to <em> or </em>deny her of the help, he shook his head in admiration of his potentially soon-to-be commanding officer.</p><p>The woman was definitely a Schnee.</p><p>And he was a Whistlewind, so whatever he could do to help his friend, he would do. Weiss was <em> alone </em> in Atlas, and Sunny was suffering the ache of losing <em> one </em>teammate.</p><p>He couldn’t imagine the agony of being ripped away from all three at once.</p><p> </p><p>So, he’d give Winter what she wanted.</p><p><em>But</em> he’d figure out what she was playing at, too.</p><p>And if this was <em> also </em>a test along with everything else, it was the sort of one he’d pass.</p><p> </p><p>With Zavraii’s help. </p><p> </p><p>After his friend came back to them all.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>In a tiny house in the backstreets of Mantle, deceptively decrepit on the outside and hiding a cosy and warm interior, rows of bookshelves filled to bursting lined the walls of the small living room, with a large red couch salvaged from being simply discarded by a family up in Atlas tired of its more modest style, with a large thick rug covering the wooden floor to keep it comfortable and warm. Photographs of friends and loved ones lined every surface where there was room not taken up by books or files, pamphlets, or newspapers. A small analog clock on the wall had the room filled with a gentle and rhythmic ticking as the seconds went by, hanging just above a large writing desk pushed against one wall nearest to one of the two windows, providing a view angled out just enough that traces of the sky were visible underneath the canopy of the city above.</p><p>The room was warmly lit, and the cosy and comfortable decor was a theme followed through in the rest of the tiny house, with a warm and simple bedroom and kitchen. It had been lovingly and comfortably set-up over a couple of years, having initially been barren and cold upon first being moved into with nothing but a bedroll and a rucksack.</p><p> </p><p>Seated at his desk and rifling through papers while typing notes into his computer, Zavraii took a sip of his tea and frowned to himself. His clock above him chimed to sound that it was midnight, and he groaned at the revelation of the late hour and sat back, stretching his arms above his head and feeling a few satisfying cracks in his shoulders and down his spine from it. Humming to himself in thought, he went back to his work.</p><p>Every political rally in the past two years, every speech by every important figure, every interview and press conference and release by the major corporations, every newspaper article from every major publication. The attendance lists and footage of every formal event, notations of the guests that were visible in the footage but not on the lists.<br/>Everything.<br/>He was poring over <em> everything. </em>It was taking weeks of constant and focused work, and he’d barely made a dent in the intel he needed to gather and collect. With files of each person of interest growing larger, sorted out around him according to priority and then each pile alphabetised, his workspace was gradually filling up and he was running out of flat surfaces.</p><p>Tapping his fingers on his desk as he scanned over the article on his screen, an interview with one of the board members of a rare-metal mining deregulation lobbyist group, he pushed his wheeled chair back and snatched up a newspaper from the same week and flipped through to another article he was looking for concerning the same group, a scandal involving another board member and the misappropriation of funds. Raising an eyebrow, he wheeled back to his desk and grabbed the attendance list for a fundraiser hosted by Councillor Sleet, narrowing his eyes as he spotted connections.</p><p>Opening Sleet’s file, he noted down the interesting details, and then did the same with the file on the lobbyists, and sorted the files back into their spots before moving on, continuing with the articles.</p><p>Tapping his fingers on his desk again, he stood and quickly made his way over to one of his bookcases, sorting through one of the shelves until he found the previous year’s public-domain law records he was looking for and pulling it out to flip through it, skimming through until he found the section detailing the history of rare-metal regulations within the last ten years, and which elected council had been responsible.</p><p>The work continued, books and articles and different websites and records opened and closed in constant streams, the activity having occupied his every waking moment since the week they had returned to Atlas and the academy had been temporarily closed, giving them all free time to begin their plan. But his role in it was different from the others, so he had time to do his own research and look for his own connections.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing and rubbing his eyes, the clock chimed one in the morning in what felt like the blink of an eye to him, but the file on Sleet had grown a few extra pages, and checking the time he stood and threw on his jacket, before taking the fuller folder and sliding it into his satchel and putting it over his shoulder, quietly making his way out of his house and locking his door behind him, even though there was no way he would be robbed or disturbed, not by those in his neighbourhood.</p><p>Hands in his pockets, he quickly made his way across Mantle, getting familiar smiles from some of the locals out late and giving smiles back. His parents had been well-respected among the poor of Mantle, so when they had died when he was fourteen they had leapt to his aid and support, and when he had proven to truly be his parents’ son they had grown to respect him for himself.</p><p>Zavraii Illyas was <em>not</em> a Huntsman. He was a <em>protector</em>. And the skills he gained and the connections he made during his time at the Academy would be used to look after Mantle for the rest of his life.</p><p> </p><p>His teammates had always known it, knowing that the day would come after graduation where they would split up as a functional team, with Kirian and Petyr destined for careers in the R&amp;D department and Sunny dreaming of a place in the Specialist Program, meanwhile Zav was going to return down to Mantle and begin his own particular battles.</p><p>And they’d be each other’s ally forever.</p><p> </p><p>But now...everything was different. Briefly pausing in his brisk walk, already concerned he’d be late for his meeting, he closed his eyes and took a moment to think over their new...situation. What was lost, what was changed.</p><p>Feeling a stab in his gut, he kept walking, opening his eyes again and hurrying to one of the ghettos and a certain sidestreet, knocking on a door in a musical rhythm.</p><p>A few seconds later a small hatch slid open, and he got a nod before the door opened properly and he stepped into a small and sparsely filled room.</p><p> </p><p>Joanna Greenleaf gave him a friendly but straight-faced nod, and he smiled back and offered his arm for her to grasp, which she did so, finally letting out a small smile.</p><p>“How’re you holding up, kid?” She paused for a moment. “You doing any better?”</p><p>“I’ll be okay. Just tired, I guess. How about you guys?”</p><p>“We’re managing. We have plenty of time to get the ball rolling, but getting it started in the right direction has been tougher than we’d like.” Joanna led him further into the room, where some of the other members of the Huntresses were having their own small meeting.</p><p> </p><p>Noticing the new company, Robyn Hill gave him a nod of acknowledgement as she continued what she was saying to the others, and he waited patiently while she finished up. Giving a nod to the others to continue the meeting, Robyn made her way over, Joanna stepping away to return to the meeting herself.</p><p>“Right on time, as always.” Robyn gave him a friendly look, the corner of her mouth curling up only slightly, but her eyes were warm. “What have you got for me this time?”</p><p>“Oh nothing serious, just Councillor Sleet having a secret loving relationship with the Gemgrind Coalition.” Zav reached into his satchel and retrieved his folder on Sleet, handing it over as Robyn raised her eyebrows.</p><p>The woman immediately opened it and flipped through the more recent additions, having already seen and made her own copies of everything up to that point. Scanning the pages, her eyes narrowed in barely contained anger and contempt at the man, and her hand clenched to the point the folder threatened to scrunch up in her grip.<br/>Pausing and taking a moment to let out a deep breath, Robyn flipped the folder closed and clenched her jaw before looking back up at Zav.</p><p>“Good work, as always. You still good if I make copies?”</p><p>“Sure, Miss Hill. I’ll come back and grab the file back tomorrow morning?”</p><p>“You got it, kid. But stop calling me Miss Hill.” Robyn rolled her eyes, dropping the file down onto the nearby table and crossing her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve known you since you were a kid and I wasn’t even a student. Am I really looking <em>that </em>old?”</p><p>“I guess that’s true…” Zav smiled fondly and shyly, putting his hands into his pockets. “But still, you’ve done a lot for me, and you’re going to be running for an <em> election </em>in a couple of months. So…”</p><p>Seeming to ponder it for a few moments, pursing her lips, Robyn nodded to cheekily concede the point. Sighing, she took in his exhausted and bedraggled appearance and shook her head in concern.</p><p>“Zav, every time I see you, you look more tired and drained. I know what happened to Petyr was awful, but…”</p><p>“I’m okay. I’ll <em> be </em>okay. I promise.”</p><p>“Your little smile and golden voice won’t work on me. Just...let me worry, kid.” Robyn sighed again, reaching over and putting her hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing a lot to help out, it’s only right if I worry.”</p><p> </p><p>Both of them looked at each other quietly for a moment before Robyn gave his shoulder another squeeze and let go, tapping one hand on the file on the table next to her while the other was down by her side. Glancing down at the file, she frowned and nodded in thought.</p><p>“If you find anything else on the Gemgrind assholes, I’d love to know. That’s twice you’ve found some way they’re fucking with things, and I’ve been seeing evidence of more.”</p><p>“Anything I should know about?” Zav grabbed his notepad from his pocket and a pen, clicking it to take notes, and she told him what she could. </p><p> </p><p>Jobs in Mantle had been fluctuating all over the place since some of the mines on the edge of the deep freeze had been drying up, leaving plenty of people unemployed and desperate. Deregulating the current restrictions on rare-metal mining <em> would </em> open up new prospecting sites, but they’d be in the deep freeze.<br/>And civilian jobs in the deep freeze had horrifically high fatality rates, and few if <em> any </em>worker’s protections.</p><p>Jotting down rumors she’d heard and things her own investigations had revealed, Zav flipped his notepad closed with a confident nod.</p><p>“I’ll see what I can find.”</p><p>“Thanks kid. But don’t feel pressure, we’ve got time, and you’ve got your own project you’re working on.” Robyn gave him a small thankful smile, before her face went serious and reassuring, and she spoke softly. “We won’t forget the work you’re doing, Zav... Your parents would be proud.”</p><p>Silent at that, Zav sucked in a breath for a moment, and gave a small smile. Looking down, he rocked back and forth on his feet shyly at the praise. “Thanks Robyn. I hope so.”</p><p>“You know, if you told me what you guys are up to, I might be able to help. You wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t agree with, that’s a pretty solid assumption for me to make at this point.”</p><p>“I know, but...we have to be careful.” Zav bit both of his lips, but instead of staring at him until he explained, or being disappointed at his secrecy, Robyn shook her head and held up a hand.</p><p>“If that’s the case, that’s the case. I trust you.” She gave him a smile that was slightly larger than her usual, before glancing over at where the rest of her group were talking between each other. “I do have to get back to the meeting though.”</p><p>“Yeah of course. I’ve got a bit more work to do before I turn-in anyway.” Zav nodded in understanding, taking a half step away before stopping in surprise when she grabbed his arm, and he looked back at her.</p><p>She had a deeply serious look on her face, and a firm fire in her eyes.</p><p>“We’re going to fix all of this, Zav. <em> Don’t </em>lose hope on me. Mantle might need you, before things get better.”</p><p>Meeting her stare for a few moments, blinking as he processed the <em> intense </em>look in her eyes, Zav slowly nodded, and risked an only half confident smile. “I won’t give up. Neither of us will.”</p><p>“Good. Now go get some sleep, I’m getting tired just looking at you kid.” Robyn playfully shoved him away, and gave him a smirk as she went back to her meeting.</p><p> </p><p>Leaving the room quietly, his hands back in his pockets the moment he was back outside and wandering his way home, he thought over his situation and allowed himself to brood, which he rarely did. While he wasn’t a member of the Happy Huntresses, it was true that he’d known Robyn for years, and his parents had known her as well. When they had died, she had done more for him than anyone else.<br/>If there was anyone specific that Zav felt any loyalty to, outside of the people of Mantle in general, it was Robyn.</p><p>One of the only reasons he’d agreed to go along with his team’s plan, the secrecy and discretion and more than a fair share of deception, including repetitive use of his Semblance, was because he knew it would help his home and he wouldn’t have to manipulate any of the people he trusted. That was his insistence; he wouldn’t manipulate or use any of the people he respected. Not after the first few...necessary ones.</p><p>Things still sat funny with him, on the edge of his moral code, but they’d get it done, and both Atlas and Mantle would be better for it.</p><p>It would take months to get everything into place, but if his friend and caretaker got elected to protect his and her home in the meantime, it would all be worth it even if the rest fell through.</p><p> </p><p>Arriving back at his home, he stepped inside of his living room and locked his front door behind him, before sighing as the tension left his body, and a deep exhaustion and fatigue took its place, bringing out a tired groan.</p><p>Nodding in resignation to the exhaustion, he didn’t bother to flip on any of the lights as he made his way to his bedroom, stripping off on the way and setting an alarm for early in the morning so he could get back to work.</p><p>Flopping onto his bed, he was asleep before he could even pull up the blankets.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Just a quick catch-up with the boys! While they won't be a focus until Part 3 of the story (with team LAVA currently being the focus of Part 2), it was only right to give a small update!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Broken Weapons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shina continues to lose sleep as he's haunted by the thoughts of what happened in the village, as the shoreline of Anima approaches on the horizon. Meanwhile Kakra has been showing increasingly concerning signs that she may be a failed experiment after all when sent to another village to subdue it, only to leave bodies behind that not even Delilah can make use of.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ooof, this one took a while to get out. MUCH shorter chapter this time, writer's block is killing me since I'm barely sleeping from panic attacks. Writing might slow down a bit until my mental health is back on track, but I shall keep trying!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The passenger ship ferrying between Sanus and Anima was larger than expected, and wasn’t carrying a full load of passengers, but it meant that there was plenty of extra space for privacy and quiet for the three day long voyage. With no room to train, there was nothing to do except for each member of team SKTC to get lost in their own thoughts, Tacita spending most of the trip in deep meditation and thought, and Kylar reading. Chrystal vanished for hours at a time, as she always did no matter where they were, leaving just Shina.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was close to midnight on the second night, and with the deck completely empty of people it was left in only a low-lit glow, illuminated only by the lights coming out of the bridge windows as the skeleton night crew navigated the familiar dark waters that they had travelled hundreds of times. They’d been thankful for SKTC’s presence, with the presence of Huntsmen doing wonders to keep the rest of the passengers reassured and feeling protected, so the captain had been fine giving them permission to wander the decks at night time without supervision.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sitting towards the very front of the ship, perched on a heating vent for the engine room below, Shina looked out at the dark and churning waters, the sky above too cloudy for any stars to reflect off the surface of the ocean. There were dark shadows underneath his eyes, and his armoured jacket was folded up underneath him as a cushion, leaving him just in the tight black shirt he wore underneath it. His hair lacked its usual tidy styling, and was instead unkempt, sitting with clear signs he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Golden eyes flicked from wave to wave, drawn to each movement as they appeared and vanished, and his lips were tight, jaw clenching in intervals as his thoughts travelled along dark and guilt-filled roads. He hadn’t had a solid night of sleep since the village, and keeping to his word he hadn’t used his Semblance during any of the smaller fights they’d had between then and now against Grimm, but the exhaustion still left him feeling hollowed and strained. It’s not that he was having nightmares, he was just restless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t exactly shocking as to why, after what he’d done.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The others hadn’t brought it up to talk about, Kylar and Tacita seemed content for the ball to be in his court and for him to bring it up when he was ready, meanwhile Chrystal seemed oddly of the opinion that it didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be spoken about and it was simply a matter of him finding his feet again and things getting back to normal. But she hadn’t exactly been the same since Beacon either, being far quieter and colder, even to the three of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kylar was more focused and introspective in recent days as well, often having a frown on his face just in thought, but he was calm and collected, the internal study he was doing kept him busy but not too distracted that it could be a problem. Any safe openings they had, he was experimenting with the evolution of his Semblance, generating small amounts of Dust and studying the qualities of it. While he clearly had a theory as to why he was able to generate some easier than others, and in varying degrees of quality and quantity, he hadn’t told any of them, not even Tacita, it simply always ended in him frowning at himself and going back to his thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile Tacita seemed as she always had, being the best out of all of them at keeping herself collected and attuned, but she spent hours in meditation as she stretched out her own Semblance to observe everything happening around her, working on her focus. Still no luck in replicating her astral projection, but it didn’t seem to be frustrating her, merely curiosity-inducing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lack of communication between the four of them was starting to worry Shina greatly, but he didn’t feel as if there was anything to do about it, not yet. None of them seemed to be in a good enough state to be brought together and caught up onto the same page, because he suspected that none of them would even know what to say about themselves. Would know how to word it.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He </span>
  </em>
  <span>certainly didn’t yet know how to word his own thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not in a way that the others might be able to understand, and wouldn’t just dismiss him for.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sighing, he shook his head gently to try and dispel what he was thinking and feeling, but he knew it was fruitless to try. They’d just come wandering back in a few minutes once he let his mind wander around again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chrystal had been right that the memories of the village wouldn’t return properly, with a thick layer of fog laid over his mind when he tried to remember, leaving just flashes of lucidity and how things had felt. Every action had made perfect sense at the time, with a different sense of reasoning taking over and making very compelling silent arguments as to why it should be in control instead of him, and he had given that control over without much of a fight. </span>
  <span>He had surrendered to it just as easily as he had during the fight against Adam, even if he physically healed from the fallout at a scarily improved speed, the black tendrils seeming to assist in it. But his mind was still just as susceptible, if not slightly moreso if the pull to enter the fourth cut was any indication.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling off his right glove, he looked at his skin as if expecting to still see any lingering black veins, even though he knew they had faded entirely once again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sound of one of the thick metal doors to the interior of the ship opening and close, followed by footsteps behind him a few moments later, had him start to come out of his thoughts so he could react when Kylar sat down on the nearby railing on the side of the ship and gave him a concerned but understanding look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few moments, Shina glanced up at him properly and raised an eyebrow at Kylar’s lack of speaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing specific. Just...here to be here, I guess. Isolation doesn’t suit you.” Kylar shrugged, shifting slightly and putting his foot up on the railing so he could look out either over the ocean or over at Shina easily enough, and pulling a small ice crystal from his pouch to spin between his fingers in his constant habit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shina sighed and tilted his head as he studied his friend. “I’m okay, Kylar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No you’re not. And it’s okay that you’re not.” Kylar gave him one of his usual stern raised eyebrows for a moment, before glancing out over the ocean. Shina shrugged slightly and helplessly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want me to say?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frowning down at the water as something caught his eye, Kylar crunched the dust in his hand to draw it in and formed a small spike of ice just above his fingers, which he quickly fired down into the water to pierce through the head of a baby Grimm shark, dusting the creature. Thinking over Shina’s question as he lowered his hand again, he shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never shared Tacita’s love for stories, but she was obsessed with them ever since she was a kid, and that didn’t stop even by the time I met her as Signal. Every birthday I’d buy her more books, and she’d devour them. But they made her happy, and they gave her purpose. She wanted to be a hero, wanted to help create the sort of world that always existed by the time the story ends. ‘Happy ever after’ with the monsters slain and people safe. Fighting for what was right, and the only reward being that...other people would be inspired by being shown that evil could be fought. Heroes create heroes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling fondly, Kylar took a deep breath and let it out as he let himself ponder his thoughts for a few moments, Shina watching and listening quietly. Kylar wasn’t a talker, in fact he had vocally accepted that he was bad at it and that it was Shina and Chrystal’s department. If Shina let himself admit it, he’d confess that he barely knew his teammate at all. Just that Kylar was smarter than he was, but nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he stayed quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And why </span>
  <em>
    <span>-I- </span>
  </em>
  <span>became a Huntsman isn’t exactly hidden knowledge. At least, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>thought </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was an obvious answer; I think I have it in me to make a true difference. With my intellect, and my Semblance, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew </span>
  </em>
  <span>that I could be great at it. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That </span>
  </em>
  <span>was my answer and...it </span>
  <em>
    <span>seemed </span>
  </em>
  <span>like the right answer. Now I’m not so sure. I think it’s changing.” Kylar frowned, pulling a gravity crystal out of his pouch and letting it hover above the palm of his hand, both of them watching as it pulsed purple gently in response to being so close to his aura and...something else that Kylar seemed to understand but Shina didn’t. “And I need to figure out what it is as soon as possible, otherwise I’m not going to make it out of this alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blinking at the suddenly extremely serious look on his friend’s face, Shina straightened up and rested his hands on his knees with a frown. “How do you mean?...you okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Letting out a deep sigh, Kylar deflated slightly and let the gravity crystal return to the palm of his hand properly, closing his fingers around it and finding security in the feel of the smooth edges and surface, and the power just within it that only he could feel in a true form. Composing his expression, he looked over at Shina with an uncharacteristically sympathetic and compassionate look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we don’t know why we’re doing this, why we chose this life, then when we hit roadblocks we’re going to fall apart because we won’t have any...momentum, I guess. The mission can only mean so much, but it won’t hold us intact. Because whenever something happens that has nothing to do with the mission, it’ll be too easy to fall apart. Case in point…” Kylar gestured to Shina and scrunched up his face pointedly, and Shina winced and looked away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Continuing, Kylar kept his voice measured, without particular gentleness </span>
  <em>
    <span>or </span>
  </em>
  <span>sternness. “What you did was awful. But it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>you. </span>
  </em>
  <span>You have a Semblance you can’t control, and you’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>been able to. And so you killed people. Including civilians. And if Chrystal’s Semblance hadn’t evolved during her week in Beacon, you would have killed her too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...this isn’t making me feel better.” Shina said almost silently, still looking away, and Kylar frowned, swinging around from where he was sitting so that he was facing Shina entirely, his hands in his lap and the gravity crystal hovering slightly above them, spinning in place slowly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Which is all why I found myself so curious, on the walk from there to the port...” Kylar narrowed his eyes in curiosity, but not the playful type, and when Shina met his eyes he pinned them with an intense stare. “You could easily pick a life where you’d never have to use your Semblance again. You’re charming, handsome, funny, and smarter than you let yourself think you are. It’s all actually rather frustrating. But you’re so determined. Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising an eyebrow and ignoring the question for a moment, dodging it, Shina fixed Kylar with a curious look. “When did </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>become inquisitive about others?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling slightly and shrugging, Kylar lifted up the gravity crystal and brought attention to it, where it was slightly pulsing unusually in response to him. “Just trying to grow up, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising an eyebrow in momentary confusion before he dismissed it, Shina sighed and ran his ungloved hand through his hair, trying to think of how to word it. He’d never really explained it to anyone before, not in any detail, because he knew it was a strange answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, nothing seemed to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>too </span>
  </em>
  <span>strange anymore.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My mum was still acting and modelling when I was a kid. Glamorous, famous...that world was her kingdom, and for a young kid it was captivating. I wanted to be just like her. But when the cameras were off and she was back at home, she’d speak about it in a way that made it sound so...shallow.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shallow?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Being asked questions that meant nothing and giving deep answers that said nothing right back to them. Parties of wine and networking and...yeah. She loved it with all her heart, yet she made it clear that she knew just how empty it all was. Performative. But, she always encouraged that </span>
  <em>
    <span>if </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was a world </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted to try, she’d give me her full support.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shina shrugged with a small smile. He missed his mother, even if she probably wouldn’t have any words of wisdom for his current situation. But then his face dropped slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My father wasn’t sure if it would be right for me. He’d wondered if I’d inherited the natural fighting talent of his family. So as soon as I was old enough to start learning how, which was the same age I could start attending parties with my mum and visiting the set and what have you, he started teaching me to fight. Aaaand he was right. Natural talent. Even more than his own, apparently...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trailing off, Shina’s eyes went distant, and Kylar waited patiently as his friend seemed to get lost off in memories from far away, ones long enough ago that they were hard to latch onto and get a hold of. And when Shina started speaking again, there was a strange empty undertone to his voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He told me that if I had inherited the talent, I was destined to end up in bloodshed. It was inevitable, and it had been for generations. Not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>legacy</span>
  </em>
  <span>, not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>duty</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A family curse. So I had to learn, and if I wanted to take control I needed to make sure the fights were on </span>
  <em>
    <span>my </span>
  </em>
  <span>terms.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lifting his blade from where it was leaning against the vent unit next to him, he half unsheathed it slowly, the sound of the steel sliding out was familiar to them both but comforting to him in a way he wasn’t sure how he could explain except if he were to compare it to how it comforted Kylar to spin dust between his fingers like he always did. Both of them looked down at the metal that had been reforged between the doubles round and the singles matches so that the damage to it that had occurred against Lillian Vale was fully repaired, the loving treatment giving it a unique level of reflectiveness that made it glow under starlight, or appear to be actively shining under sunlight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kylar proudly considered his staff Myriadisca to be the most complicated and intricate of all of their weapons, but there was no argument that Hornet’s Kiss was the most elegant and beautiful. A deceptive beauty just like it’s wielder, with Shina’s casual charm and handsome looks clearly hiding a vicious power that they had all begun to fear they had been underestimating for too long. They had figured they’d understood the escalation in risks when Shina had unlocked the third cut and it had been simply a heightened cost of the previous two. But the game had changed now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Semblances that affected the mind were rather common, with Chrystal’s being another example with her exaggerated and empowered physical instincts extending to herself psychologically as well, which caused </span>
  <em>
    <span>plenty </span>
  </em>
  <span>of its own problems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this...this was different.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Both of them stared at the exposed metal of the blade before Shina sighed and slid it closed again, resting it over his lap and gently running the fingers of his right hand along it comfortingly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He was right. I’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>ended up in fights, even when I was a kid. It was even a moment when I grew angry enough that unlocked my Semblance. Because it was never going to be anything else.” Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Shina glanced down at his sword and his right hand slid from the sheath to the hilt and lightly grabbed it again. “Since taking it that extra step at Beacon, It stopped seeming so insane that it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> a curse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Going quiet after that, Shina didn’t meet Kylar’s eyes, staring down at his blade with a guarded expression where the only thing that filtered through was a resigned dread in his eyes, and eventually Kylar hummed in thought, which finally made Shina look up. Kylar couldn’t help but quietly chuckle and nod.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you’d said any of that to me two months ago, I would have told you that you were being overdramatic, that it was just a mixture of bad luck and poor self-control. But, the idea of curses doesn’t seem so insane now. In a world of gods, relics, maidens, and a creation myth that might </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually </span>
  </em>
  <span>be true, what’s so absurd about a curse...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Staring at Kylar while the boy chuckled, Shina eventually let out a tired laugh as well and shrugged in agreement, shaking his head. “Feels like it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Thinking over it, Kylar frowned, and Shina could see the gears turning inside of his friend’s head as he worked through the problem and the ideas involved. He’d speak again when his thoughts were finished, so in the meantime Shina looked over the ocean with a quiet look on his face, feeling slightly better after opening up about what he’d been thinking about. The currents of the night were misdirected and clashing with each other, fighting and twisting slowly but forcefully, and yet the ship moved through them where it was meant to be going anyway.<br/></span>
  <span>Almost wanting to sigh in disgust at the metaphor, Shina instead rolled his eyes, and it was well timed as Kylar chose that moment to speak again, his voice contemplative and quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When a Maiden dies, the power apparently goes to the woman who was in their thoughts last. An incredible power, clearly.” Kylar winced and rubbed his torso, no longer feeling any pain or tenderness from the scars but occasionally reminded of them regardless. “But they’re hunted, and...gods, I can’t imagine the responsibility. Considering the current conversation, I can’t decide whether being chosen is random chance like my dad thinks, destiny like apparently Ozpin thought, or...a curse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re potentially equating my apparent </span>
  <em>
    <span>propensity for savage murder</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to the Maiden gifts?” Shina’s voice was incredulous, and his eyebrow raised in severe doubt when Kylar actually shrugged instead of denying it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t know how strong your Cuts end up. Look at what just the fifth makes you capable of. It took all three of us just to stop you, and I’m betting we were only able to because the cut had been taking its toll on you throughout another whole fight before that. Imagine if you’d been completely uninjured? And that’s not quite even half what you’ll be fully capable of.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, and apparently each level after the fourth starts to strip away who I am. Kylar, you don’t understand just how much I </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>in control of it.” Shina objected, gripping his sheathed blade in both of his hands in frustration, but Kylar had a response.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, from how my mum says it, the Maiden powers contain the essence of previous maidens within them. So, Maiden’s aren’t fully themselves anymore either as their powers get stronger, it seems.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Opening his mouth and closing it wordlessly, Shina’s expression tightened in frustration as he tried to think of a counter, before he narrowed his eyes at the increasingly smug and victorious look on Kylar’s face. But eventually the smugness faded, and only concern and compassion remained. Sliding the gravity crystal back into his pouch, Kylar retrieved an air one, rolling it around in the palm of his hand before enclosing his fingers around it gently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll figure out what’s going on with you. Just like we’ll be there for Chrystal when she needs us to be. Sure, that one’s going to take time.” Kylar rolled his eyes, but there was a fondness to it, such a rare expression from the boy that Shina felt a spark of warmth in his chest. Kylar sighed and tossed the crystal up and down playfully for a few moments before retrieving an ice crystal as well, and rolling the two around in his hand together. “But, Tacita and I will both be there for you to help you. Try and remember that we’re your teammates too, yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Shina simply sat quietly in response, eventually Kylar shrugged and turned to put his foot back up on the railing and look out over the water. A minute or so later, Shina quietly stood and walked over to join him, leaning on a nearby post. Without looking at each other at all, they simply both kept their eyes out over the water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you’re cursed, Shina, then that’s something we’ll weather together. Any fight from your curse that finds </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>will be finding </span>
  <em>
    <span>us </span>
  </em>
  <span>too. You don’t have to do them alone. We’re able to help. I mean…” Kylar drew in the energy from the two crystals in his hand and, after a moment of focusing, released a small cloud of swirling snowflakes that blew out over the waters on the gentle breeze. He smiled out as he watched them go. “It’s sort of my whole deal, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Right.” Shina nodded slightly, watching the snowflakes as they melted midair as they danced away in the wind. “...thanks, Kylar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With a return of Kylar’s more standard voice, stern and almost permanently dismissive in tone as he put his walls up once again, Shina looked down for a moment and smiled, before looking back out over the waves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The coast of Anima soon appeared on the horizon through the darkness, and when Kylar stood up to head back inside and get the girls up and ready to move, Shina waited a few more quiet moments of thought before following, grabbing up his sword from where he’d left it as he made his way indoors. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The town square of Peparra was a gorefest of blood, bones, and a mixture of black and red flesh. What had once been intact buildings had been reduced to rubble, with large chunks of stone ripped from walls to be used as weapons and others having simply collapsed under the force of the impacts that had been sundering the surroundings from shrapnel and bodies thrown with vicious abandon.<br/></span>
  <span>Standing in the middle of the carnage as she casually tore the jaw from the final body and shoved her hand up inside of its skull to rip out its brains and squash them in her hand, Kakra discarded the corpse with a casual toss to the side and studied the grey substance coating her other hand, squishing her fingers together and tilting her head with a small and playful smile on her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What had once been the people of a friendly if quiet village were now ripped and devoured lumps and puddles around her, and she glanced around to see if there were any more as she ran her tongue along her bloody hand, licking around her lips and shaking the excess with a flick of her wrist. </span>
  <span>Humming in amusement, she spread her wings and forcefully spun in a smooth movement, the Semblance she had inherited from the Huntsman enhancing the air currents it created to such a degree that the rubble and bodies around her were violently flung away in a perfect circle around her, crunching into jagged foundations of what were once structures, or simply bursting entirely upon impacting with whatever stopped their momentum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking at her hands, she cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders, though nothing inside of her body was tight or sore, before pulling her wings back towards her body so they weren’t in the way. Chewing on a small lump of grey matter she’d licked from her hand, her nose twitched at some of the grit and she spat it out to the side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Delilah was watching nearby, her hands folded behind her back as she stood just out of range of the carnage, having arrived towards the end of her daughter’s massacre of the small village.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the other children of hers that she had sent along were all destroyed as well, including those of the reinforced and brutally strengthened generation, and the sparks and static she had been able to feel inside of Kakra even from a distance had told her everything that had happened, as bloodlust had again taken over her daughter’s mind, and she’d stopped discriminating about who she tore apart.<br/></span>
  <span>While Kakra didn’t have the sheer physical strength the behemoth generation did, or skin that was as impenetrable, her advantage was that she was able to </span>
  <em>
    <span>think.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>What her claws and fists hadn’t been able to do, she’d realised giant chunks of rubble could manage just fine. Though she hadn’t ended that particular butchery completely unscathed, with a large chunk bitten out of her thigh steadily regenerating, bleeding gushes of black blood all the while.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Even from the distance she was standing, Delilah could see the horrific glowing of crimson red in her daughter’s eyes, the dormant aura of when she had been Kakassi still thriving within her system and seemingly corrupted by Delilah’s own, along with the black flesh itself. From what Delilah could deduce, Kakra had </span>
  <em>
    <span>three </span>
  </em>
  <span>levels of aura, and each one was working together to maintain her and empower her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While Delilah’s own aura kept Kakra connected to her and allowed her to utilise the black flesh inside of herself to its full strength along with drawing upon the aura reserves of her siblings, the slight amount of aura she had absorbed from the Huntsman inside of her was in charge of protecting her, dedicating its full amount to preventing injury and healing wounds. Leaving the crimson red aura of Kakassi to fuel her raw strength, speed, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>rage.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Three auras, each from a different source and conflicting with each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mind wasn’t able to handle it, she’d displayed that numerous times now, deteriorating the longer that all three were engaged and pushing at each other.<br/></span>
  <span>It had been only a few minutes in when her battle frenzy had overtaken her, and Delilah had almost lost connection with her entirely as she had given into it and practically torn the village apart without any regard for anything except bloodshed, that same maniacal giggle coming from her lips any moment she wasn’t using her fangs to tear flesh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>This was the third time it had happened. Though the previous two times there had been a worthwhile number of</span> <span>bodies left to take home and raise.</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her daughter was </span>
  <em>
    <span>dangerously </span>
  </em>
  <span>unstable, in practically every way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made Delilah concerned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Kakra had returned to herself towards the end. For the most part. </span>
  <span>Even now Delilah could feel distortions and disturbances in the different elements keeping her daughter intact.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While she wasn’t going to explode like some of the other failures, she was going to become more and more unstable as time went on. Any semblance of sanity was likely going to slip away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not yet perfect. Not what Delilah was aiming for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it came to her experiment, Kakra was a failure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that did not mean she wasn’t amazing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kakra casually kicked around a chunk of rubble with her foot while her mother clearly evaluated her and reviewed her, but she wasn’t particularly worried about the outcome. Either she’d be allowed to live, which would be incredible, or she’d be killed, which would be unstoppable. So no point worrying too much. She trusted whatever decision her mum made.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in the meantime, </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>had been </span>
  <em>
    <span>loads </span>
  </em>
  <span>of fun, and she smiled widely and gave a little giggle again as she looked around at her results.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While it had taken her a little while to get the hang of it the first time she’d fought, once she had found her rhythm and gotten into the swing of it...it had been euphoric. Just the sort of stretch she’d needed to get the blood flowing upon first being reborn. And every opportunity she had since, she’d gotten lost in it. </span>
  <span>Clenching her fists together, she smiled in satisfaction, before kneeling down and scooping the torso of one of her siblings from the ground and cracking the shoulder to remove the arm with a wet ripping sensation, standing and studying the black blood of her sibling dripping out of it in a steady stream onto the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cupping her hand underneath the stream, she studied the pool of blood that collected in the palm of her hand, and she raised an eyebrow before walking over to her mum and meeting her eyes as she slowly tilted her hand and dripped the blood onto the cracked stones.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And these are the generation of siblings you broke a </span>
  <em>
    <span>city </span>
  </em>
  <span>with? Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Delilah’s eyes turned from cool and contemplative into a fierce glare that had Kakra wilt underneath it, and her voice came out in a dark and livid snarl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be respectful, Kakra. They may not be up to </span>
  <em>
    <span>your own</span>
  </em>
  <span> standards, but they sacrificed more than you did and climbed those first vital steps. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You </span>
  </em>
  <span>wouldn’t exist without them. And nor would I.” Delilah gestured to her own mutated form and raised her eyebrows scornfully, and Kakra looked away, reprimanded, and apologetic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...you’re right. I’m sorry. That was just...easy.” Kakra quietly dropped the arm she was holding and kicked it behind her as if to pretend that she’d never been holding it, and Delilah gave a sad look around at the corpses littering the surroundings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, honey. They’re not meant for fighting, merely for living and helping. They’re very special to me, you know that. They’re your siblings. Just as much a part of you as they are a part of me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pausing for a moment as she connected with her mother’s aura and mind, Kakra felt what Delilah was talking about and winced guiltily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I shouldn’t have gone after them. I’m sorry. I just...got caught up in it.” She whispered, looking down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s alright. Something just didn’t work properly in you. It’s not your fault.” Delilah reached out and gently ran her fingers through Kakra’s hair, and the girl softened and leaned into the touch before nodding.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Both of them straightened after a few moments, and Kakra fell a step behind her mother as Delilah walked into the middle of the town square and looked around at the results, her hands folded behind her back while Kakra’s were by her sides, twitching nervously as she waited for the orders of the next move. Her mother wasn’t the sort of woman to waste time, not really, and Kakra was more than ready to get to work wherever she was sent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling over at her mother fondly, Kakra felt a small flush of admiration go through her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother had turned her from something weak and inefficient, a broken design, into what she was now. By breaking down the walls between mortal and Grimm she had found a way to evolve humanity, which had been impossible. And her children, Kakra’s siblings, were so powerful and wonderful that they’d helped bring Beacon to the ground.</span>
</p><p><span>And now, only a couple of months later and with the aid of Salem’s power, Delilah’s control and skills had developed to a point she had managed to give birth to </span><em><span>her.</span></em> <span><br/></span><span>She was her mother’s achievement, and she felt...incredible for it. It wasn’t like she could really remember what it was like to be human, to be </span><em><span>alive, </span></em><span>but it couldn’t have possibly felt anything like this.</span></p><p>
  <span>Everything hummed inside of her body, constantly squirming and pulsing and desperate to move and yell and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hunt. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Gods she wanted to hunt, she wanted to keep tearing things apart, because nothing was ever enough. When she wasn’t killing people she was killing her siblings, and when she wasn’t killing her siblings she was hunting other Grimm out in the forest, her hunting range growing larger and larger as she ran out of prey.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inside of her head she felt what was almost a constant pulsing pressure, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>need, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and it made the black blood and flesh inside of herself resonate and twitch and pulse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Wincing slightly as she clenched her fists to calm it, Kakra took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wasn’t like there was anyone or anything around here left to kill, anyway.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>But she was so...</span>
  <em>
    <span>hungry</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Seeming to sense it, Delilah looked over at her and gave her a soft and understanding smile, before reaching up with her hand and cupping Kakra’s cheek gently and wordlessly for a moment, letting her daughter nuzzle into the touch with a dreamy sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We need to create more of your siblings. There are enough bodies remaining intact here that Ican create enough for us to move on to the next town entirely and start fresh. And you’ll be there with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blinking in surprise at being given the opportunity, Kakra smiled unnaturally widely and excitedly, almost childlike, and nodded with complete confidence. “Of course mum, just tell me when.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It will take time for me to birth them, of course. You haven’t left me much to work with. But by tomorrow night we should be ready. You’ve proven you can </span>
  <em>
    <span>butcher</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Kakra. Time to see if you can </span>
  <em>
    <span>conquer</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Delilah raised a stern eyebrow at her, and Kakra shrunk under the sharp edge in the look, nodding meekly and following her mother through her work as more of her siblings lumbered into the square to pick up the few intact bodies and start the process of dragging them back through the forest to Ikaksi, a couple of hours away on-foot.<br/></span>
  <span>But Kakra merely spread her wings with a snap and wrapped an arm around her mother, before rising into the air and bringing them both home at an unnaturally fast speed, the two of them touching down in the silent square of Ikaksi twenty minutes later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As they entered the makeshift lab, Delilah froze as she noticed as the Seer was floating awake in the center of the main room, and she stopped in place with a jolt of anxiety, the Grimm crackling to acknowledge her return, and only a few moments later Salem’s voice slithered out from it with as smooth a tone as always.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“So, Delilah. Your first attempt at your true ambition has borne fruit. And when exactly were you planning on finally telling me?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Silent for a miniscule moment, Delilah had to resist the urge to squeeze her eyes shut as a slice of panic and dread went through her gut and her skin turned to ice, with the tendrils of the floating Grimm seeming to respond to her fear as they quivered and began to slowly curl. Dropping to a knee in a bow instantly, before she could collect herself and come out with an answer the Seer floated past her and paused in front of a confused Kakra.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Step forward, girl. Let me take a proper look at you.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hesitating in anxiety, Kakra took a deep breath before approaching properly and spreading her wings ever so slightly to present herself, giving a jerky half-bow and waiting, shivering slightly as the Seer slowly moved around and circled her to scrutinise her from all angles while Delilah stayed on her knee, staring at the ground but watching in the edge of her vision. </span>
  <span>Gasping a breath in when the razor sharp tip of one of the tendrils lightly traced the skin of her jawline, cutting into the flesh slightly enough that a line of black blood rose to the surface, the Seer paused to observe the cut instantly closing. The tip turned so that the flat edge was pressed against her skin softly, and it curiously traced a lazy pattern down her jaw and under her chin, tipping her head to stare directly at it so that Salem could see into her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“How many of her generation can be made?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Watching as her daughter was scrutinised with her heart practically stopped, Delilah let out a breath to focus and risked looking up at the Seer, her voice quiet and apologetic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Barely any, my queen. They require a host that can handle the strain, otherwise they’ll fail and likely perish. Maybe one body or two in every thousand. The original host was the only girl in this village who seemed to be a viable candidate. And even then, she wasn’t perfect. It’s showing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Is that so…?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Salem’s voice was slow, and dangerously bordered on both disappointed and amused at the same time. <br/>A tone that had Delilah’s throat suddenly go dry, and she took a steadying breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When both Delilah and Kakra looked at each other Delilah’s face was mildly anxious, meanwhile Kakra’s expression was ashamed and apologetic, but the Seer crackled with warning to snap Delilah back to attention and answer, and Delilah stepped forward to place her hand on Kakra’s back sadly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s self-aware right now, because things are currently in balance. But bloodlust robs her of it, much like any other Grimm, and she’ll gradually find it harder and harder to stop each time she kills. We’ll lose her to it entirely, eventually.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At hearing it said out loud, Kakra winced and tried to look away, but the tendril under her chin pressed enough into her flesh that she held her stare with the orb. Through the Seer’s eyes Salem could see in the girl’s expression that while she was pretending to be ashamed and guilty for the sake of her mother, not wanting her to get in any trouble so heaping the blame onto herself, she personally was thrilled and eager at the idea of enjoying her bloodlust more and more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a <em>hunger</em> in those red irises.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if someone had taken the nature of Grimm to despise all life, and given it a voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because that’s exactly what she was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl was a barely contained animal, Salem could see it in the pulsing red and black of her eyes and practically </span>
  <em>
    <span>smell </span>
  </em>
  <span>it in the black blood in her flesh even from such a distance. She raised an eyebrow and tapped her fingernails on the armrest of her throne.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was Delilah’s ambition of eventually giving birth to a ‘Perfect’ generation that had been why Salem had taken a true interest in Delilah in the first place, in the interests of using such creations to her own ends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While the most basic of Delilah’s children, the Thrall generation, were little more than meat shields and labor...the </span>
  <em>
    <span>second </span>
  </em>
  <span>generation on the other hand, the Behemoth generation, were stronger than most Grimm by a wide margin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And were far harder to destroy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But while Salem knew those creatures to be horrific and powerful, and alone would have been enough to allow Delilah to join her cause, it was Delilah’s grand ambition that had piqued Salem’s interest;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her ‘Perfect’ children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This ‘Kakra’ was the first attempt in that ambition. Broken or not, she was significant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And undoubtedly useful, once she had proven what she was good for.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Have you come across any other hosts that fit the criteria?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, my queen. Three.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frowning in doubt even as she answered, Delilah bit the inside of her bottom lip. Of the three only one of them, a man this time, felt like it would be a better candidate than Kakassi had been. But Delilah knew what mistakes she’d made last time, since last time she hadn’t taken the addition of the dormant aura into account.<br/></span>
  <span>She could do better from now on. Her next one </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>be more sustainable and healthier than Kakra, but there was no guarantee they’d be </span>
  <em>
    <span>stronger. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Kakra may be uncontrollable, and would end up completely rabid, but her pure physical destructive power was immense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Salem picked up on her doubt she made no comment on it, as the Seer instead returned its attention to Kakra, the razor-sharp tip still tickling along her skin almost playfully as she was scrutinised.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was quiet for a few moments, a silence that neither Delilah or Kakra dared break, before Salem’s voice came through again with a commanding and intrigued tone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Bring her to me.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Not my best chapter, I honestly might rewrite it at some point and I'll post a note if I do.</p><p>This is really all the calm before the storm, since shit is about to hit the fan for pretty much everyone, but this sort of calm is hard to write without worrying that it's boring to read, I guess?<br/>But anyway, super short update this time, will try and get momentum back soon enough. Promise!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Burden Of The Badge</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>With their courses now set and inescapable, the leaders of each team are constantly reminded of just how much there is to lose, even as more and more enemies martial against them and the stakes grow larger.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Swirling his drink around in the bottle, Shina looked down into it with tired eyes and gave a sigh, inaudible over the music from the nearby jukebox and the conversations of the few other patrons in the bar. While the port they’d docked in was busy, packed full of sailors and refugees who were looking for transport to </span>
  <em>
    <span>anywhere</span>
  </em>
  <span>, there were enough taverns and bars spread around that it was easy enough to find one that was quieter than the others, and attracted the sort of clientele that didn’t make eye contact with each other and left each other alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was perfect for the mood he was in, and he took another sip from his beer and closed his eyes as he gently placed it down onto the bar counter, softly biting the inside of his cheek for the small grounding comfort that the light stabbing pain gave him, being a habit of comfort.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d given his team the night free to do what they wanted, with the plan to head out into the wilderness the next morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“One last night of the comforts of civilisation.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>He’d worded it, as they’d booked their tavern rooms for the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And after each of them had dropped off their stuff, they’d scattered, with Kylar and Tacita going off together to find somewhere private to just quietly be with each other, while Chrystal simply vanished as she always did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving Shina to simply wander the streets of the busy port town, with cargo constantly moving around in a constant flow, and while he was certain not all of it was legal he didn’t have Chrystal’s eye for that sort of thing. But the sword on his back made sure he wasn’t bothered by the sort of people who were eyeing up everyone else, and he was able to simply go on his way with his hands in his pockets and his eyes lazily studying his surroundings without any of it really sinking in.<br/></span>
  <span>The breeze coming from the water was cool, and one last night of it would be welcome before they’d be deep in the trees where it would be nothing but the damp frost of the winter chill. Even the tavern was nice and cool in the early evening, enough that it justified wearing an armoured jacket outside of just regular paranoia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t an idiot. There were enemies here. Just well hidden ones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And hopefully ones that weren’t stupid or impulsive enough to try anything. He wasn’t in the mood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Finishing his beer in a large gulp, he placed the empty bottle down and raised a finger to the barkeep, who immediately cracked the lid off another and placed it in front of him. She gave him a friendly smile as she did so, and while he returned it there wasn’t as much warmth in his eyes as she may have liked. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was that she wasn’t Velvet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Letting himself sigh again as the woman turned away, he stared at the counter and tapped it with his fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thankfully Velvet had gotten out of Beacon alive, Chrystal had confirmed it, and she was apparently headed for Vacuo. She was on about as opposite a side of the planet as could have been possible without actively trying to be, and he felt a hollow distance because of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the important thing was that she was alive, and her whole team was with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco was far more capable than she thought she was, with an insecurity hidden underneath her swagger that the two of them had related to each other about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One thing out of many.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither of them would have the time or space for those insecurities anymore. They’d both have to get over them, and fast, otherwise their teams would fall apart in possibly the worst ways imaginable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially his own, considering the dangers that were piling up against them. Even ones from the inside, apparently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Closing his eyes as that particular thought stuck into him, he scowled. Brooding didn’t suit him, it wasn’t his nature. But it didn’t feel like there were many other ways he could process what had happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even his father was scared of his Semblance. But it had never been a regular fear. More like an intense dread, and he’d tried his best to teach Shina how to control it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Taking another deep drink, Shina opened his eyes again and rolled his shoulders, his attention going to the door when it opened and the sound of conversation came in. Slightly raising an eyebrow as he watched three men, clearly Huntsmen and each in their early forties, walking in and chatting among themselves. He gave one of them a nod when the man caught him looking, and the man glanced down and saw Shina’s blade leaning against the counter before his face immediately went stern in understanding, nodding back in recognition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An energy in the bar dispersed slightly as the men entered, as if a small undercurrent of nervousness had been washed away by the presence of the people who represented safety and security from the darkness of the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deciding to finish his drink in a few large gulps, Shina placed the quickly empty bottle on the bar and didn’t order another, simply sitting and tracing lazy circles on the countertop with his gloved fingers, bathing in the relaxing atmosphere. While he was definitely the heaviest partier out of the four of them, he did agree with Chrystal that there was something deeply relaxing about sitting quietly at a bar. </span>
  <span>Shifting his mind towards the plans for the journey ahead, he was brought out of his musings a good half an hour later when a glass was placed down in front of him, looking to be of an expensive bourbon. <br/>Raising his eyebrows at the barkeep, the woman gave him a smile and flicked her eyes to the three Huntsmen sitting at their table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“From them. For getting out of the city okay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Studying the drink for a moment, Shina gave a small smile of gratitude to the woman before turning his head to the three men, meeting the gaze of the man he had exchanged looks with earlier. The man raised his own drink in acknowledgement, and Shina nodded in thanks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking back at her, the barkeep was giving him a gentle look as her eyes eventually placed him in recognition, and her smile went sympathetic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We showed your fights at the tournament.” She gestured towards a television mounted on the wall, currently switched off due to the network likely being down for the foreseeable future. “You were pretty spectacular. Did all four of you make it out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a pause, he nodded, feeling a small pulse of relief at the fact, a burst of relief he always felt when he reminded himself that at the very least all four of them were alive, even if they weren’t completely intact anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Took a while for some of us to be back in action, but we made it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank the gods.” She breathed, leaning back in sympathetic relief and giving him a soft smile, before straightening again and shaking her head. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like. We watched it all go down…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ha. We were told that it was all broadcast, at least until a friend of mine managed to shut it down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And thank god for that. It was horrific.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling sadly, Shina nodded in agreement, tightening his expression, and just from his reaction it was obvious the sheer magnitude that was going unsaid, and the woman let out a slow breath, placing her hand on his gently and only for a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m...so sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too. My team...were luckier than most, though.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Unsure how to respond, the woman gently took her hand off of his and gave him a sad smile, going back to work and leaving him to his thoughts as he sipped his drink. The men had been extremely generous, it was top shelf quality, and he gave a small and appreciative smile down at the glass as he finished it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three men far more experienced than he was had bought him a drink purely because he’d escaped one single battle alive. It was a strange thought, and it suddenly felt like a strange experience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t some seasoned veteran. Some Huntsman who had seen unimaginable hells and come out of it grisled and scarred. It was one battle and a dozen losses.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>That didn’t make him some sort of hero. It just made him a lucky survivor. Hell, he’d been his own worst enemy that night. Hadn’t he?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was what they’d trained for, but it felt like...nothing they ever could have anticipated, even though the four of them specifically had smelt something coming for months beforehand, and had been on their guard. But there was no preparing for the sheer scale of what had happened.<br/></span>
  <span>Huntsmen students were gradually taught how to cope with death from a young age. Both in losing comrades and friends, but also in what it meant to take the life of another person in battle. Lessons and exercises fell so short compared to the real thing, when it had happened. He’d never seen that much blood in his life, when his blade had gone straight through the chest of the first man he’d fought that hadn’t had an aura.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he’d had to do it again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The downside of only having a melee weapon, he’d discovered, was that you were forced to be up close and personal when you took a life. Forced to be close enough he’d had to see their eyes even through their grimm masks. The moment they went dull and their body went slack. But by that point, he’d usually been moving on to the next one, and the next one, unable to afford to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Huntsmen were trained to fight at a standard that not even the general military were trained at, and it put them at a tier beyond anything civilians could match, even those with awakened auras of their own. So to have ended up surrounded by White Fang bodies...hadn’t felt much like luck, or like it was some absurd notion.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It had been an inevitability.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All Huntsmen were trained to </span>
  <em>
    <span>fight</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But his father...his father had taught him how to </span>
  <em>
    <span>kill</span>
  </em>
  <span>. There was no sparring in his father’s methods, no incapacitations. He’d been trained to fight like the edge of a knife in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d never understood why. But that was just how his father had insisted on training him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it had resulted in a courtyard of White Fang bodies alongside Chrystal, who was just as lethal in her own particular ways.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Closing his eyes and ordering another bourbon, he drank it down quickly when it arrived, his eyes dulled and deadened from where his thoughts had gone. It hadn’t mattered just how lethal or cold or fast he’d been that night, there wouldn’t have been any difference when it came to saving his friends from their fates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pyrrha. Petyr. Ysgar. Irik. Boral. Reika. And too many others to name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But their faces stuck with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially Pyrrha’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If they’d been </span>
  <em>
    <span>together </span>
  </em>
  <span>against Cinder, maybe they could’ve…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hissing to himself to banish the thought, he clenched his eyes shut as a spasm went through his muscles, and his fingers dug into the wood of the counter enough that it creaked under his grip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cinder had been too strong. Adam had been too strong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How many other people had been there that he hadn’t encountered, who would have been too strong as well?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was that the standard of enemies they were now up against?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>...and he could only safely handle a quarter of his own Semblance, without gradually losing control of it. He scoffed at himself in disappointment and no small degree of shame, and ordered another drink, willing to pay the extra just for the comforting taste of the top shelf again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While he didn’t have much spending cash of his own, it was worth using it up on this.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Looking down into his glass and glancing his reflection in the liquid, he fought the immediate urge to close his eyes. Every time he glanced at himself on any surface, he found that he kept expecting to see remnants of those cursed black tendrils.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lingering, festering, never fully fading.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His hand gently went to the hilt of his blade, leaning against the counter next to him, in an unconscious grasp for comfort. Wrapping around the leathered grip, he only held it for a few moments before forcing himself to let go, his eyes going to his gloved hand. Bringing his hand to the counter in front of him, he tilted his head at it in a depressed thoughtfulness as he slowly unstrapped and removed his glove to look at his pale skin. </span>
  <span>Despite what was currently a lifetime of training and fighting, the skin of his hands and arms were unmarred by scars, with the only blemishes being the calluses on his hands from years of using a sword, but even then they weren’t particularly rough to the touch. If he squinted enough, he could swear that there were still thin signs of where the tendrils usually appeared, as if they’d carved small crevices underneath his skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But even under direct light, nothing was visible. It was his imagination.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost like a punishment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had to get the cuts under control. There was no way in hell they’d make it through the forest without him having to use his Semblance above the third level at least once, and he had to be in control when it happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Otherwise there was no telling what he might end up doing. The last time, he’d killed civilians in friendly fire, and attempted to kill his own team, forcing them to subdue him. And the time before that, he’d almost gotten himself killed against an opponent that, according to news reports, had escaped anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Suddenly feeling a need to be in the dark, he finished his drink and gave the barkeep a smile as he stood to leave, swinging Hornet’s Kiss over his shoulder so that it sat in its normal place on his back, and he shared a respectful nod with the three Huntsmen as he left, getting supportive and respectful looks in return, one of the men raising his glass slightly in recognition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stepping out into the darkness of the night, he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, enjoying the dancing of the light fog of his breath in the winter frost. Judging from how long ago the first frost had been, winter was soon going to be reaching its height, and he wished that he was back on Sanus in more peaceful times so that he could enjoy the snowfall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Anima didn’t really get snow, instead it got a dry and harsh frost that turned mud into concrete and left the trees rigid and skeletal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was going to be horrible and uncomfortable weather to travel in, but there were only a handful of towns between the port and Ywitawa, around four weeks away, three if they pushed hard. And they had every intention of pushing hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Putting his hands into his pockets, he mindlessly made his way through the streets, looking down at the ground as he thought, the alcohol pleasantly burning in his system but burning off far too quickly. Having an aura had its downsides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His thoughts mulled over his Semblance and what had happened at Beacon, constantly travelling to thoughts of Pyrrha, and the other friends he lost, and then going back to his Semblance and what had happened at the village. Constantly turning and shifting around inside of his head, it turned his mood black, but his stride didn’t change or tense, instead remaining balanced and relaxed even as he had to occasionally squeeze his eyes shut and grind his jaw to squash down certain parts he wasn’t willing to think or feel while out and about, exposed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of his team, only two of them had any true sense of discipline. Kylar and Tacita both had Semblances and combat styles that demanded focus and complete understanding in order to be used at their best, meanwhile Chrystal was the other end of that spectrum with a Semblance that made it impossible for her to have any sort of discipline at all, in anything she tried in her life.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Meanwhile </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>thought he’d been somewhere between the two extremes. A balance. As the team leader, it felt as if he should have been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But clearly he wasn’t. He’d become the wild card, one that even his teammates had to keep a wary eye on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Making his way through the streets, he could feel his Semblance underneath his skin. Just at the very corners of his mind, sitting there. Not pressuring him, not trying to tempt him, but simply sitting there as if to constantly remind him that it was there, ready and waiting for whenever he might want it or need it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The signs of one of the scariest parts of what was changing in it;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every time he used anything higher than the third, it became more tempting to do the next time. And it didn’t even feel that good to use. It wasn’t any sort of endorphin rush or high, it was simply a state of lethality that was inhuman.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yet it was still...dangerously addictive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The worst possible Semblance to have in the case that the Kamisari family curse might be a real thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately for him, it was if the universe was determined to prove to him that it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Making his way through the streets in the shadier ends of the docks, he passed by a group of faunus unpacking a shipping container and loading smaller boxes into the back of a truck for transport. Ammunition, dust, and other necessities.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Being tall, well-built, and armed and armored, he was easily noticed by the smugglers as they worked, already having been keeping an eye out for anyone passing by that might be a concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>None of them said a word as they noticed him, merely watching silently as he moved by, and he didn’t register them either, too lost in his own thoughts. But as soon as he was further along the waterfront, the head of the group flicked his eyes to one of his subordinates, a wary and hostile look in his eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well then. The boy </span>
  <em>
    <span>survived</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Contact brother Adam.” The man gave a small and curious smirk as he nodded to his own command.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But sir, brother Adam has returned to the High Leader’s side. He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>weeks </span>
  </em>
  <span>away, if he isn’t busy with other matters anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is. But brother Kuroika and sister Unagi are nearby. And I’m sure they would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>more </span>
  </em>
  <span>than happy to finish what he started.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The late morning sun was reasonably warm on her skin as Lucy sprawled out on her dome, her aura projected underneath her as a cleaner and warmer surface to lay on than the frosted mud, while also counting as training for her Semblance as well. The shimmering silver dome underneath her was solid and thick, easily able to support her weight, in fact during the battle of Beacon her domes and barriers had proven strong enough to hold up rubble and hold off the explosive barrages from the giant Paladins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, there was the risky side effect that whenever she had a dome or a barrier projected it meant her own body didn’t have aura protecting it, but just on the outskirts of town in the late morning was a safe enough time to go without it, and she found it worth it if it meant avoiding getting ice-cold mud all over her clothes and hair.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Pushing herself to a sitting position, she glanced around at the treeline in front of her, the buildings of the town close by behind herself, and she narrowed her eyes as she scrutinised her view. Grimm numbers in the area had seemingly dwindled to almost nothing, to the point that her team were moving on to the next cluster of villages, but the numbers didn’t add up to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’d been killing a lot of Grimm. But not </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>many.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>So what was?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Scrunching up the corner of her mouth slightly in a frown, she reached over to where her bag was sitting next to her and grabbed her tablet from it, opening the map she’d been working on diligently of the larger area. Dark bags of exhaustion were under her eyes, and she was pale and almost gaunt from fatigue, every night was restless and almost barren of sleep as she sat up trying to figure out what might be happening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew her team were just as confused and concerned as she was, because they’d stopped scolding her for working so hard on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Despite her prayers, her map and information didn’t suddenly magically provide any answers out of nowhere, and she turned off her tablet and placed it by her side before running her hands through her hair, working out the knots. Ever since returning from Beacon she’d been growing it out, and while she liked how it looked just past her shoulders, it was becoming a task to deal with. She didn’t know how Lillian handled hers, reaching down just past the middle of her back, while also being the fastest fighter out of the four of them.<br/></span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>People had sometimes commented on just how different the four of them were, seemingly lacking the similarities that all teammates developed with each other over time, as if falling into a specific style. But the four of them were as different as different could be, in everything from fighting styles to Semblances.<br/></span>
  <span>They had their champion in Lily, a noble scion of a legacy of unmatched warriors.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Their doctor of the wilds in Alice, pretending she wasn’t a genius just because she hated to fight.<br/></span>
  <span>And their nuclear deterrent, their guardian Angel, the most powerful Huntress in potentially generations in terms of sheer aura and Semblance, but unable to use it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Lucy was the knight in shining armour, dressing and acting the part with full-plate armour and shining spear, with a Semblance that protected others instead of herself on the cost that she would almost surely die because of it one day. To children she seemed to be almost out of a story. She came from nothing special. Just a regular girl from a regular family who wanted to make a difference. Who’d always stood against bullies on the schoolyard, and refused to turn the other cheek when she came across trouble in the streets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now she was here.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Grinning to herself in light amusement, she refused to allow any tension to enter her posture, but she was brought out of her thoughts by a quiet gasp and then words somewhere behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to where a young girl was looking at her with wide eyes, having stopped her mother in the street when she had noticed her.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>When she looked over, the girl's mother gave her that silent apologetic look that parents always give when they’re afraid their child has annoyed someone with their innocent antics, and she gave a wide and easy grin in response to reassure her that it was okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winking at the girl, she lowered her dome gently to lower herself to the ground, and the girl gasped again when the aura wrapped back around herself and shimmered as it sank back into her skin as she gracefully rose to her feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl took a step forward, and her mother almost went to stop her on reflex, but Lucy gave her a reassuring look and made her own way over, smiling down at the girl who looked to be around seven.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...hi.” Once she was closer, the girl immediately went shyer, but her demeanor was soft enough that she relaxed and gave a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl’s mother gave a smile, her hand on her daughter’s head gently. “She’s never seen any huntresses before, until you girls showed up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh yeah?” Lucy raised her eyebrow along with keeping her smile, and she crouched down only slightly, not wanting to condescend to the girl. “I’m Lucy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m...I’m Juliett.” The girl’s voice was shy, but she gave another soft smile.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“It’s nice to meet you. And my friends and I are happy to be here.” Lucy gave a warm nod, and the girl bit her lip softly as she relaxed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Straightening up, Lucy smiled at her mother. “I hope we’ve been a help while we’ve been here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling back appreciatively, but with a hint of some other sad emotion behind it, the woman nodded. “More than we could have ever hoped to expect once the network went down. You girls have been a godsend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you. We wish we could stay longer, but with things quieter here now we have to move on to the next towns that might be in danger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. But…” The woman hesitated for a moment. “You came straight from Shion, and now you’re moving on to…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peparra, hopefully.” Lucy provided when the woman paused, and she nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes...it’s quite a journey. How aren’t the four of you tired? Especially after the tournament. After...Beacon.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sucking in a breath slightly, Lucy’s confident smile almost faltered, but she managed to hold it. In truth, all four of them were exhausted, and they wanted nothing more than to return to Haven and start tearing the city apart looking for whoever it was that let Cinder Fall and her minions get to Beacon in the first place. But the four of them also knew they were doing a lot of help, and orders were orders.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>But they were so tired. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Angel hadn’t even fully healed from her burns before they’d been deployed. And Alice was barely sleeping, constantly sneaking out of the room in the middle of the night when she’d wake from nightmares. Lucy would hear her pattering down the hallway and downstairs, while she was usually still up working.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s the job, ma’am. And we won’t fail it or neglect it, not with things how they are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...right.” The woman nodded, a sad frown appearing on her face. “I didn’t mean to offend or anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t. I’m...pretty aware of how we look.” Lucy laughed and shook her head relaxedly. “But it’s our job and our duty, whether or not we’ve graduated yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just...be careful out there, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We will. And we’ll send reinforcements as soon as we can.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The woman nodded with a smile, before taking her daughter’s hand and leading her on her way, Juliett giving Lucy a wave as they left, which Lucy returned. Turning on her heel, Lucy made her way back to the more private area she’d been resting, and slumped her shoulders, resting her forehead against the nearest tree and closing her eyes. She felt so heavy.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Each of her teammates were stationed at their own posts, with Alice moving through the trees on a wide circle in patrol, able to use her Semblance to blend in and become practically invisible. But it meant each of them had temporary privacy from the others, and Lucy took advantage of it to squeeze her eyes shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The battle of Beacon was a fresh memory that refused to fade in the slightest. She’d killed people, even as she’d saved others. But if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t the fact </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>had killed people that haunted her, it was the memories of her friends faces when </span>
  <em>
    <span>they’d </span>
  </em>
  <span>killed that stuck with her and caused nausea in her stomach.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Lily had handled it the best, which didn’t surprise any of them. But she knew her friend was suffering anyway.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Meanwhile Angel had simply compartmentalised, sealing it away in the moment and then processing it gradually over time as she unlocked it piece by piece.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Alice had shattered. She’d put herself back together after a handful of minutes, but in the moment it had been too much for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lucy would remember the look on her best friend’s face for the rest of her life. And she would be haunted by it in her nightmares. Those pure and playful green eyes growing cracks almost like breaking glass as she’d realised what she’d done.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>The White Fang had hesitated to attack her, seeing that she was a faunus, but the other mercenaries hadn’t had any such reservations.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile Lucy had the second most blood on her hands, second only to Lily, and it felt like a ball of burning hot acid in her gut if she let herself think about it. But she hadn’t gotten out of it unscathed, since she’d spent decent portions of it with her aura projected out of herself to cover civilians as they’d evacuated, leaving her body vulnerable.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Plenty of new scars, some rather impressive, that shimmered silver. Most were hidden by her armour, but she knew they were there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling her retracted spear from her belt, the weapon able to retract down to the length of an ordinary sword and hang from her side, she clicked the lever and extended it to its full length, looking at it to try and find comfort in having it in her grip, and spinning it around herself lazily as she stepped back to have room to do it freely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were to leave town tomorrow morning, and she knew it was going to be a miserable one-week journey to the next decent-sized settlement, the basic trading town of Peparra. It was a nice enough place, Alice had been there in the past as a kid when her dad had been a travelling doctor instead of working at the central hospital, and much like Shion and Ochado were it was a hub for a cluster of nearby smaller villages that the four of them would have to cycle through and clear out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just a basic repetition of what they’d been doing ever since their deployment. God knows how tired the four of them would be afterwards, but by that point they’d likely be relieved and able to return to Shion to rest and recover, if not recalled to Haven entirely, since by that point they would have been in the field for </span>
  <em>
    <span>months.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Then they had even more work to do, of their own volition, but at least they’d have comfortable beds and familiar faces around them as they went about doing it.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It would also be nice to see the updated lists from Beacon. Alice was going to be drained further and further until she knew the fate of Chrystal Wasara of Team SKTC. The others didn’t really understand why Alice was so insanely concerned about Chrystal specifically, but they didn’t question it to her face.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>That would almost certainly go poorly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, if it brought Alice comfort and security then it was worth fighting to know the truth of, as far as Lucy was concerned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile Lily and Angel were closed books, for the most part. They always had been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It drove Lucy crazy sometimes. She needed to know how they were. What they needed. What help she could give.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the two of them handled things their own way. Which usually meant Angel drank herself to the point she’d ended up in hospital before, and Lily trained until she broke as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She couldn’t exactly judge them though, not without being a hypocrite. But she wanted to help them, if they’d just </span>
  <em>
    <span>let her.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Swearing under her breath in frustration, Lucy drove the blunt end of her spear into the ground so she could rest her head against it, closing her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was so tired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They all were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the job wasn’t done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The job might </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>be done.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Still leaning on her spear, she caught herself just as she began to sway, dozing off right on her feet, and she immediately jolted herself back to awareness with a frustrated sigh. Pulling her spear from the ground, she banished all thoughts and cravings for rest from her mind as she clicked the switch to retract it, and then clipped it back onto her belt, freeing her hands so she could run her fingers through her hair and give a frustrated groan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There wasn’t any time to rest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Job wasn’t done.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Glancing back towards the town to make sure she was out of sight of the streets, not wanting to be seen like she had been before, she was satisfied enough at her privacy to grab her pack of cigarettes from her pocket and slip one between her lips, and grabbing her lighter. </span>
  <span>It was a terrible habit, one she’d done an excellent job of quitting before, and she’d only started again since returning from Beacon. But they helped her think, and her team didn’t get to judge her. Nobody did. But that didn’t mean she liked to broadcast it to the whole world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially not to a town full of kids who looked at her the way that the girl earlier had.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She loved being looked at like that, by kids.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It made her feel like she was doing some good that went far beyond just killing Grimm. They looked at her as if she was keeping all the evils of the world at bay, as if they couldn’t believe that a person could </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>that. Kids saw weapons and Semblances and auras and it built into their beliefs that it was possible for the evil to be beaten. Kids needed that. To believe that the evils of the world were being beaten. That the monsters under the bed didn’t stand a chance, because there were real superheroes out there in the night making sure of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were benefits to being young, too. Younger huntsmen and huntresses were somehow seen as more heroic than the more grizzled and beaten down grown-ups who’d been doing it for years.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Graduating the academy with brand new shiny gear, swagger in their steps, youthful looks, ready to take on the world. It was the inspiring image of the virile and powerful young champions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lucy wasn’t naive, she saw how Lily was treated just for being powerful and beautiful. The image of strength and heroics was just as powerful as the heroics themselves, if not moreso. Lily killing ten Grimm was great, but Lily </span>
  <em>
    <span>on television</span>
  </em>
  <span> to the whole world killing maybe only </span>
  <em>
    <span>three </span>
  </em>
  <span>would be even more effective when it came to keeping the people’s fear at bay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it came to giving them hope.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a basic psychological strategy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Propaganda.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it worked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As much as Lucy might hate her friend being used, she could see merit in the strategy.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>She didn’t want to imagine just how much trouble Lily had gotten into for losing at the Vytal Tournament.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Angel’s parents were just proud of her for trying, Alice’s dad had been working and hadn’t seen the match, and her own parents…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took another drag of her cigarette as her thoughts went in their direction, to cut them off with the distraction of the heat in her lungs. It wasn’t like they would have watched the match even if they’d known what time it was on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But the prized pupil of Haven Academy had lost without even making it to the singles rounds. If the events of the tournament itself hadn’t been overshadowed by how things ended, she imagined that would have been a bigger deal than most people might have expected it to be.<br/></span>
  <span>Headmaster Lionheart was big on being seen to do things, without actually doing that much. And it wasn’t a trait singular to just him.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Performative Guardianship’</span>
  </em>
  <span> was a favored policy of the Mistralian Council.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe she was just cynical. But she didn’t feel wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After all, how can her theory about being seen killing one Grimm being more effective than actually killing ten be inaccurate, when instead of killing a hundred Huntsmen personally all that Cinder had had to do to </span>
  <em>
    <span>tear the world down</span>
  </em>
  <span> was kill one girl on-screen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Clicking her lighter open and closed repeatedly in playful habit, she closed her eyes and savored the smoke in her lungs before letting it out slowly. Thankfully, practically every decent sized town had a store to buy booze and smokes, otherwise herself and Angel might have gone insane by now. Meanwhile Lily got her therapy with her swords in her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time until Alice ran out of her own supply and started having withdrawals, though. Oh she could </span>
  <em>
    <span>try </span>
  </em>
  <span>and hide what she was doing as much as she wanted, but she’d never been great at hiding </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything, </span>
  </em>
  <span>let alone covering up the seemingly random bouts of fuzzy distraction and cheerfulness that had no cause. How her dad hadn’t ever picked up on it, Lucy had no idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the man wasn’t exactly the attentive sort to anything except his work, and his own deteriorating health.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she needed it in order to sleep, fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>God knows they were all having trouble sleeping.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But if she started dosing during patrol or while she was on watch, Lucy would burn her stash personally.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaking her head sadly and running the tip of her tongue along her top row of teeth, Lucy let out a stressed but determined sigh, releasing smoke into the air as she exhaled. They were all running on fumes, and she knew that was on her.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It would only be for another couple of weeks. Then they’d return to Haven to rest, and start their own work.<br/></span>
  <span>The thought of their determination to put themselves into even more danger even once they returned home, made her shake her head in almost a form of bewilderment at herself for not just agreeing to it, but starting to plan it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she let herself feel the exhaustion within her muscles, and the fog inside of her head that was growing heavy enough that her thoughts were sluggish and it was hard to focus, she sucked in a resigned breath, and swore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Damn it all.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Unbeknownst to her, roosting in the tops of the nearby treeline with a patient and eager expression on its fanged and demonic face, a winged harpy sniffed the air curiously in her direction before fluttering away to wait for the right chance to snatch its next target.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sighing silently to herself as she moved around the warmly lit dance studio, packing away the exercise mats used for their cool-downs, Cypher resisted the temptation to speed the process up by blinking, instead enjoying the process of slowly pacing in her thoughts as she did it. Her last class of the day had let out barely a minute earlier, the sound of her students chatting still audible even through the closed door as they all headed downstairs and out onto the street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Normally she’d join them, and the other instructors. Head to the bar with them, have a couple of drinks, then back to the orphanage for a warm dinner with her friends that still worked there, then an early night. But this evening, she felt the need for some quiet.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Snowfall gently dropped outside, visible through the large windows as snowflakes occasionally brushed the glass and stuck there to slowly melt, the glass warmed from the inside of the building, and then trickled down as ice until freezing again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pausing in her packing to watch for a few moments, she gave a small smile at the peaceful sight. While not particularly a winter person, there was a serenity and quiet to snow that was always soothing, always comforting and almost familiar. Despite knowing otherwise, it always gave the feeling that things were safe and secure. Soft.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Going back to work after a few moments, she slid the last of the mats back into their slots in the small storage room and snatched up a rag and spray bottle, kicking the door of the storage room closed gently as she left, and then getting to the tedious process of cleaning the wall-sized mirrors, starting at one end to slowly work her way over to the other.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was normally something the cleaners did, but she felt the need for the distraction.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Her life was nothing </span>
  <em>
    <span>but </span>
  </em>
  <span>distractions currently. In between teaching classes, spending time with Neo to talk and catch up with each other, and then training with the girl, it felt as if everything she was doing between those moments were just distractions to pass the weeks until the roads would be clear enough for them to leave again.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Once the snows were melting, they were planning on leaving for their mission, with a wide circuit of different large towns around the Kingdom Of Vale to speak to informants of Neo’s and Roman’s, and a trip to the town that Cypher knew Delilah had come from just to see if there were any clues there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their trip would take </span>
  <em>
    <span>months</span>
  </em>
  <span>, even with Cypher’s Semblance able to have them travel insane distances per day, but it was worth it for every scrap of information they had. There was no way of knowing where Cinder and Delilah had gone, even though Mistral was the safest bet, but they wanted as much confirmation as possible before travelling across the ocean and potentially to a different continent than their targets.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>‘Targets’.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Cypher sat back from where she was cross-legged in front of the mirror, scrubbing one of the corners, and she looked away from her own reflection. Instead of killing Grimm, or protecting the people, she was going after revenge.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It was revenge for the most part, but Cypher also knew just how dangerous an opponent and enemy that Delilah could be. She was the smartest member of their team, the best fighter, the most cunning, and with a devastating Semblance that she had apparently mastered in a way so horrifying that even just the memory of those monsters (the large ones </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>the small) had Cypher feel slimy and shudder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if they found her and Cinder, there was no way of knowing if they stood any chance of taking either of them down. But they were going to damn well try.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It wasn’t like either of them had much else left to lose.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Delilah had taken everything from her. Everything. The only way she could have done more damage would have been if she’d stopped by to burn the orphanage to the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clutching the cleaning rag in her hand, Cypher closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself, before getting back to her cleaning, trying to ignore the voices in her head that spent a lot of time trying to either talk her out of her decisions, or convince her to do it for different reasons. There were other options that she could do. It wasn’t like she didn’t have any friends left out in the world who could use her help.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>According to Neo, Chrystal had been expecting to head to Kylar’s place on the island of Patch, which wouldn’t be particularly hard to get to with Cypher’s particular skill set and abilities. Chrystal was maybe the last person that she had left.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>But Chrystal was tough, and nearly impossibly capable. She’d be just fine with just her team, Cypher was sure of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the thought still made her pause again, as it always did.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The woman she loved was safe. Was back with her friends. But...was so far away that there was no telling whether Cypher might ever be able to lay eyes on her ever again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Closing her eyes, Cypher rested her forehead against the cold glass of the mirror and bit her bottom lip, feeling that same lump in her throat she always got when she thought about it. It made her feel pathetic, and she knew she needed to just get over it and move on, but getting over a girl like Chrystal wasn’t an easy task. Not when they’d meant so much to each other, and done so much by each other’s side. They’d fought, partied, stole, explored, laughed…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gods, she had loved her so much.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>And not in the ways that people normally fell for Chrystal. People who fell for her because she was tragic and damaged and exciting and intoxicating. Cypher loved her for who she was, for what she did and why she did it.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Chrystal had loved her in the same ways.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You’re thinking about her again.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Opening her eyes and glancing up, Cypher smiled sadly at the imaginary sight of Ursa in the mirror, the woman leaning against the pose railing along the nearby wall with her arms folded. Just a memory, a thought. The other girl still existing as one of the voices of reason inside of Cypher’s head.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Wouldn’t you have had trouble stopping too?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Of course, in your shoes. But she’s safe, and back with her friends. There’s no changing what happened, and all you’re doing now is torturing yourself.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I know. But it’s…” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Cypher pushed herself to her feet to keep cleaning the mirror. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“It’s hard to stop.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Have you forgiven her, then?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>At the question from her more reasonable half, Cypher flinched and paused in her cleaning, the rag staying pressed against the glass as she looked down at the floor and her fingers dug into the cloth. In truth, she hadn’t. Not yet.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Chrystal had…</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Her own </span>
  <em>
    <span>sister…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Closing her eyes, she sucked in a breath to let it out slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“No.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“We can’t imagine what she was feeling at the time. She thought you were dead. She was broken, and alone.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I don’t care. I thought that…”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A new voice entered the conversation, Lelise appearing and sitting down against the same wall Ursa was leaning against, her eyebrow raised.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Thought what? That you’d be a special exception to Chrystal’s sharp edges? That you would be the only person who had lines she’d never cross?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“...yes.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Cypher let the rag hang down by her side. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Maybe. I don’t know.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“If Chrystal found a new depth to be dragged to, a new low, we can’t fault her for that. Neo showed us what they’d been forced to do.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ursa sighed, shaking her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I know. But I don’t care.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Straightening her shoulders in determination, Cypher went back to cleaning the mirror, rushing the job in her hurt and her frustration but not having it in herself to give a shit.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You will. It’ll come.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Shut up. What do -you- know?!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Cypher snarled as her thoughts directed at Ursa, tossing the rag in her direction even though she knew the girl was just a representation of her own thoughts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“You were the best one out of us. What do you know about heartbreak? About this sort of pain?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Nothing. But -you- know it. And that’s how you know it’ll come.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Giving her a sad look, Ursa faded out of existence, Lelise lingering for another moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And what about Neo?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“What about her?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Just in general.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Lelise shrugged, pushing herself to her feet and stretching. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“The girl’s almost as bad as Chrystal could be. Almost like a hybrid of her and you.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Without answering beyond more than just a glare, Cypher strode over and snatched the rag up from the ground and balling it up in her fist. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“I don’t give much of a shit.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Yeah you do. Hate it all you want. But…”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Don’t finish that sentence.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Cypher hissed, turning and storming back to the storage room to put the rag and spray bottle away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she emerged from the room, Lelise was gone, and she paused in her tracks when she noticed. Closing her eyes sadly, she shook her head to dismiss the thoughts, and put her hands into her pockets. Envisioning her teammates as representations of her thoughts wasn’t healthy, she knew that, but…</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>But she missed them. So much it was killing her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>They </span>
  </em>
  <span>were her sisters. So it only made sense for Ursa to be the face of her healthier thoughts, while Lelise was her more honest ones. As for the face of her worst thoughts…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned and faced herself in the mirror, taking in her face for only a brief seeing colour in the corner of the reflection and looking over to the doorway, where her aforementioned sister was standing quietly in one of her civilian disguises, her arms crossed as she leant against the doorframe, having been able to crack the door open silently while Cypher had been distracted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kicking herself in frustration at not noticing, Cypher met her eyes in an accusatory glare, her defenses going up. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“How much of that did you hear?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Not answering for a few moments, Neo calmly stepped into the studio and closed the door behind herself, before shimmering back to her real appearance and resting her back against the surface of the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Most of it. Is that really what their voices sounded like?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“...yes.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Humming in curiosity, Neo raised her eyebrows in thought, before nodding. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Finally got voices to put to the faces you showed me.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“We’re not talking about them.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Making her way over, Cypher stopped only a couple of paces away, and shook her head to banish the subject as best as she could. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Ever.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Regarding her for a moment, Neo shrugged in indifferent agreement, before looking around the studio with an amused glint in her eyes, stepping past Cypher so she could spin in a slow circle around the comforting and clean space, walking over to gently dance her fingers along the bar.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“So this is where you spend your time.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Yes. It is. My personal life.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Cypher narrowed her eyes.</span>
  <em>
    <span> “So why are -you- here?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In truth, Cypher felt like Neo was intruding, like she’d been invaded and her sanctuary was threatened, so her defenses were raised and Neo could feel it, but ignored it. Skipping over to in front of the mirror, Neo fluffed up her appearance a bit, adjusting her hair and adjusting her outfit before giving a wink to her reflection and casting her eyes over herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Wanted to see if you wanted to train or something. Meeting with Galex went faster than expected. I checked the bar you normally go to and you weren’t there, so I figured I’d swing by here in case, and have a chance to check out the place.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“...right.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Cypher rolled her eyes in annoyance, and made her way over to her bag to scrounge around in it, not looking over to Neo as she kept speaking, instead grabbing her water bottle. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“How’d the meeting go? He have what we wanted?”</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>
      <br/>
    </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>“He’s asking around. If any White Fang got treatment off the books in the past week, he’ll find out and send it through.”  </span>
  </em>
  <span>Neo narrowed her eyes at her reflection as she found a broken seam in her jacket, resisting the urge to pick at it and risk worsening it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Taking a deep drink from her bottle, finishing off what was left inside of it, Cypher began packing up her own stuff quickly, nodding to what Neo had said. While they couldn’t safely travel too far out of the area and into the snows, there were plenty of decent sized towns within a days travel that they were making the occasional trip out to, visiting with contacts of Roman’s that Neo could see, and contacts of Junior’s that Cypher could.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>They weren’t expecting miracles, but stragglers from the battle would certainly pop up, and a few had been. None that had known anything particularly useful, no matter how ‘nicely’ the sisters had asked.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>But they’d find more, and eventually they’d get some useful information. They were patient.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding in satisfaction, Cypher zipped up her bag and stood.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I need to head back for a shower. I’ve been dancing and teaching all day.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I wasn’t going to -say- anything, but…”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Smirking at the teasing and casual tone in Neo’s voice, Cypher shot her a mock glare over her shoulder, and Neo winked playfully, still twirling to study her own reflection. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising an eyebrow, Cypher swung her bag over her shoulder. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Someone would get the impression you don’t see your reflection that much.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Seeming to pause at the comment, Neo uncharacteristically frowned in thought, and Cypher could feel her trying to close certain doors in her mind and keep certain things private, the girl’s eyes narrowing as she looked into nothing, but eventually she seemed to relent in her thoughts. The voice of Neo’s that Cypher then heard, came across as vulnerable, even as the girl’s expression was guarded. But they’d both discovered early on in their association that it was practically impossible to lie to each other, given how it was their thoughts that the other one heard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been forcing each of them to get comfortable with a level of honesty and transparency that they’d never had a chance of having before even if they’d ever wanted it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Neo thinned her lips and bit the inside of her bottom one as she looked at herself, a thoughtful and quiet light in her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“When you spend as much time looking like other people as I do, sometimes...you start to forget, I guess. And, if I’m honest...” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Neo hesitated, before shyly and hesitantly allowing a gentle smile to flick across just the corner of her lips. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“It’s...nice, to still have someone I don’t have to camouflage around.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Unsure how to immediately respond to the almost impossibly vulnerable tone that Neo’s thought was in, Cypher looked at her quietly as her eyes softened slightly, and she gently let her bag slip from her shoulder back down to the ground. Noticing as Neo didn’t react or move, still looking at her own reflection, Cypher silently made her way to her sister’s side, joining her in studying their reflections.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither of them said anything for a while, they didn’t need to, considering they instantly knew everything that the other one was thinking. But the silent ‘conversation’ did end up with both of them looking at each other’s eyes sadly through the mirror, and Neo was biting in the inside of her cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cypher looked at her own reflection, but she wasn’t even sure what she was searching for in it. Wearing her workout clothes and not her normal outfit, she knew she didn’t strike quite as intimidating a visage as she normally did. But being home, the last place she considered safe, she didn’t mind in the slightest about it.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Both of them were still shocked sometimes at just how similar they could look but how different at the same time. How hadn’t they found each other? What had happened to separate them? Questions that almost certainly wouldn’t get an answer. Not anymore.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It had been too long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they’d found each other, now. And that was somewhere to start.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Do you think we got the hair from our mum or our dad?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Running her fingers through her pixie cut, Cypher raised her eyebrows and turned her head slightly to get a better look, and Neo’s lips flicked into a nothing brief and small smile as she shrugged.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Probably the one who was taller. Since you’re full pink”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Giggling, Cypher nodded in agreement, before turning her head to look at Neo properly, and the other girl met her eyes. Sharing a soft look, one of the few they rarely let themselves ever give each other, with how high their defenses towards each other still were, the two of them let out similar strained breaths and small half-mouth smiles, and Cypher snorted in amusement at their situation.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I hope we get along.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“We’re doing okay so far.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Neo shrugged casually, but her face showed a genuine hope. Letting out a huff, frustrated at too many minutes of vulnerability, Neo waved her hand to brush off the topic before turning to make her way out. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Come on. Shower and change. I’m bored.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“What did you have in mind?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Grabbing her bag from the ground again, Cypher slung it over her shoulder before rolling her shoulders and neck to stretch them.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Training and then some dinner?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Aww, you asking me around?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Grinning teasingly, Cypher blinked when Neo faltered in her skip and stilled, looking down at the ground shyly while still facing away.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Eh. Just an open invitation.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Looking at her sister's back for a few moments in shock, her eyebrows raised and her mouth open slightly, Cypher felt a bloom of warmth in her chest and she melted slightly. Neo might try and hide it as best as she could, but...she was lonely. Roman had been all she had before the fall, with no-one else she had trusted or been </span>
  <em>
    <span>able </span>
  </em>
  <span>to trust, considering the world she had been a part of...and the dark and horrific place she had come from.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Meanwhile Cypher...she’d always had people, in one way or another. The orphanage had been there for her, as best as they could be, but it hadn’t been until Beacon when she’d found a proper family.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Her team of sisters, and her little butterfly. Not to mention her boy Junior, and the Malachite twins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now she had nothing. Not even the orphanage felt like home anymore. It had all been stolen from her, and not in a way where she could ever steal it </span>
  <em>
    <span>back. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was destroyed. Right in front of her. She’d watched her home </span>
  <em>
    <span>bleed, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and she still hadn’t scrubbed all the crimson of it out of the white of her armour. And she knew that ever since her confrontation with Delilah her hair had been a bit more vibrant in its colour, and her skin a bit smoother. Her lips a bit fuller, her eyes a bit shinier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every glance at her reflection made it impossible to forget what had happened. What she’d lost, and what she might have been given to help her avenge it.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But until the day she removed Delilah’s head...there was so little left, and she knew Neo felt the same way. That her sister was in the same pain, because while Cypher had lost a slightly larger number of tight connections, Neo had lost </span>
  <em>
    <span>one </span>
  </em>
  <span>that had been more personal and more emotional than was almost possible for Cypher to process through their telepathic connection whenever Neo thought about it, or let the emotions of it fill her.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Her grief.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Neo had only had one thing. And it had been taken from her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Those thoughts going through her in only a few moments, fast enough and personal enough that she knew Neo wouldn’t have heard them, Cypher gave her sister a small and soft smile that she couldn’t see.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I’d like that. Mind if I use your shower, then? The one at the orphanage shares hot water and it runs out quickly.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The hidden note in the request, thinly disguised, had Neo silent for a few moments, and Cypher couldn’t tell what the girl was thinking. But, eventually, Neo nodded and shrugged dismissively, glancing over her shoulder with a small smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fine with me. Get us home?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling slightly wider, Cypher walked up to her and placed her hand on Neo’s shoulder, slightly more affectionately and tighter than she had to in order to use her Semblance, and the warmth in the gesture had Neo’s smile turn from playful and dismissive to instead slightly soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding to her sister to tell the girl to brace herself slightly, knowing it was always slightly uncomfortable for people to come along with her when she used her Semblance, Cypher gave Neo a moment to take a small breath, before she concentrated and they both silently vanished from the studio.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Standing silently in front of the large mirror in his room, Sunny adjusted the final buttons of his dress uniform. A pure white yet with rich blue lining, it was the formal uniform of the Atlesian Military. With his assessment for whether or not he would be taken as a Specialist in only a few hours, it was going to be a long day.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>The gods had smiled on him, for the timing could not be more fortuitous. With the assessment in the late morning and then yet another party in the evening that he had been extended an invitation for, it was looking to be quite the busy and ambitious day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not only that, but it was a party thrown by Jacques Schnee himself, which opened up a wide variety of opportunities and openings, considering Sunny knew who would likely be attending. The web of Atlas was growing increasingly complicated, but nothing unexpected or that couldn’t be adjusted for without losing much stride. He’d been having the right conversations with the right people at each event, and his behaviour had been admirable enough to attract attention yet jolted enough to maintain the wave of sympathy he had been receiving due to Beacon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sympathy which could be used. And he </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>been using it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Narrowing his eyes as he finished adjusting his uniform, he checked his watch and thinned his lips at the time. With only a handful of hours until his assessment, there were a few things left to do, and he couldn’t afford to put any of them off any longer. Kirian had asked to see him in their old dorm at the Academy, and he wouldn’t have asked for a meeting there unless it was important.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>And considering Zavraii had agreed to join them, in fact almost insisting on the meeting for his own purposes, there was no chance that Sunny would refuse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neatening the cuff of his right sleeve, he took in his immaculate appearance for a final moment before turning and silently making his way out of his room to head downstairs, messaging his driver that it was time to start his schedule for the day. Receiving a good luck kiss on his cheek from his mother as he left, the woman as busy with work as she always was, he gave her a confident smile and stepped outside, hopping down the steps quickly to where the car was waiting for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The drive to the Academy was as easy as it always was, yet when he stepped out onto the front entrance of the campus he was surprised at just how much activity there was, with plenty of military personnel clearly deciding there was business to. While there were no classes currently, the Academy still functioned as one of the central hubs for the military, and so was never truly silent. But still, a buzz of activity of this swell was surprising enough that he frowned for a brief moment before quickly making his way inside of the massive building.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Receiving looks of recognition and acknowledgement as he made his way past different groups, and even some of the personnel quickly bustling through the halls nodded to him or smiled in greeting, and he made sure to smile and nod back to those it was important to, particularly senior officers and administration staff.<br/></span>
  <span>The dorm block was mostly silent, with only a few student teams still living in their dorms full-time, usually teams of students from far outside of the cities of Atlas and Mantle themselves who didn’t feel safe returning to the increasingly vulnerable towns they came from. Sunny didn’t blame them, the Grimm that dwelled within the Deep Freeze were growing increasingly aggressive, wandering further and further out into new hunting grounds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And some of those varieties of Grimm were monstrous, and weren’t found anywhere else in the world. Strategies to fight them mostly involved improvising, and were far beyond the basic military guard that plenty of the settlements had. But Huntsmen were stretched thin, and the districts just outside of the Deep Freeze were lethal assignments, with even few Huntsmen having auras that could survive those levels of omnipotent cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was why Sunny knew that if he was promoted and enlisted, the General would have wanted to deploy him to one of those districts immediately, given his complete immunity to frost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, Specialist Schnee had her own plans for him, which he still dedicated plenty of brainpower each day to scrutinising and tearing apart to the best of his abilities.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Allowing a small smile to cross his features as he almost reached his dorm, he shook his head in amusement, and no small bit of admiration. Winter had beaten the General without even being in the same room as the man, and likely only requiring to have one conversation with him. Meanwhile the </span>
  <em>
    <span>small </span>
  </em>
  <span>moves Sunny was setting up to make were taking weeks. But, Winter had already spent years building up her own connections and influence, so he shouldn’t be too surprised.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>All the same…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaking his head again, he reached his dorm and grabbed his scroll from his pocket to hold over the door scanner, stepping in before the door had even opened entirely and closing it behind himself instantly. Both Kirian and Zavraii were already in the room, Kirian pacing in the small space meanwhile Zav was sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands folded on his lap.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Kirian was dressed much like Sunny was, in his own dress uniform, but his wasn’t as ornate or as personalised, due to simply being a civilian student.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, Sunny couldn’t deny that Kirian pulled it off just as well as he did, if not slightly better due to his marginally better looks. Standing composed and collected, not to mention </span>
  <em>
    <span>well rested</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and always confident even when contemplative, Kirian looked the model of a military officer as he paced, and when he looked up at Sunny’s entrance his eyes flashed in approval and a small amount of relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Morning Sunny.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Morning boys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunny gave Kirian a smile, before immediately walking over and yanking Zav to his feet to pull him into a hug, it being the first time he’d seen the other boy in weeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zav didn’t hesitate to return the hug tightly, bundling the back of Sunny’s jacket up in his hands as he squeezed for a moment before letting go and stepping back, taking in his team leader’s appearance and letting out a low whistle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You clean up good. You ready for today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think so.” Sunny nodded, before looking over at Kirian. “Are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. It’s sooner than expected, but we anticipated this.” Shrugging, Kirian gave a rare smile, though only a small one, before making his way over to one of the desks in the room where a large case was laying. “But first, we have things we have to discuss and organise. </span>
  <span>I’ve got something for you, and Zavraii’s been vibrating since dawn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising his eyebrows, Sunny glanced over to Zav, who had sat back down on the edge of his bed and merely patted a large folder he had next to him in response. Frowning in concern, Sunny put the thought aside and joined Kirian, who gestured towards a large white case laying across the desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...what’s this?” Reaching down, Sunny noticed the Whistlewind family crest delicately engraved into the delicate lid, and he looked up at Kirian in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“An upgrade. But...also a gift. Think of it as a promotion gift.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t been promoted yet. And you’re being promoted as well.” Sunny smiled in amusement before looking back down at the case, his fingers going to the latches and clicking them unlocked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will be. And you’ll need this once you are.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Opening the case gently, Sunny’s eyes widened and he raised his eyebrows as he looked at the elegant white longsword that delicately sat inside, laying on dark blue felt. The length of a standard longsword, while the blade itself was sheathed the hilt was visible, and was of a gorgeous treated metal, shining like silver but clearly with far more strength than any decorative metal. The pommel was of a dragon, which Sunny had amusedly taken as a symbol ever since he had discovered his Semblance, with the guards engraved with roiling flames. The sheath was of a pure white with gold bands around it at neat intervals.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking up at Kirian wide surprise and shock, he didn’t know what to say, but Kirian simply gestured to the blade silently and folded his hands behind his back, his face impassive as it almost always was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reaching down, Sunny carefully lifted the blade into his hands, one hand on the hilt while the sheath rested on the open palm of his other hand. The weight was perfect, and even the sheath was clearly reinforced and hardened. Hesitating only for a moment, Sunny carefully wrapped his fingers around the hilt and started to draw the blade, slowly enough he could study each inch of the metal as it was revealed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment the metal of the blade itself showed, his breath stopped and his eyes widened further, unblinking, as he took in the hardlight dust blade. While it was possible to infuse hardlight dust into metal when you were forging or manufacturing out of it, to give it extra strength, most processes relied on diffusing it as much as possible due to how expensive it was to work with. It gave whatever metal it was in a telltale blue tinge that caught under light, that was only more intense the more hardlight dust was part of the composition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If the blade in his hands hadn’t clearly been treated to be a pure white after the fact, Sunny suspected it would have been almost as blue as hardlight dust crystals themselves. He could see the telltale crystalline glints, even through the special oiling and treatment that had whitened the blade to a hue that was almost that of fresh snow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With the amount of dust he could see within the metal, he didn’t even want to comprehend just how much it was worth, even as his mind was able to comprehend just how indestructible the weapon would be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Looking back to Kirian, speechless and uncomprehending, Sunny had no idea how to react in any way at all for a few moments, before managing to speak once his eyes went back to the blade in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Kirian...how?...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s been a project since we got back to the city.” Nodding in thought, Kirian considered his handiwork with a scrutinising eye. “I believe it’s suitable, and certainly combat grade.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Snorting from where he was sitting, Zav smirked. “That’s putting it lightly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You knew about this??” Sunny looked up from the blade and over at Zav, who gave a warm and loyal smile and nod.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He didn’t tell me upfront, but when I got a report from our informant about the hardlight dust stores of the Academy needing refilling, I asked Kirian if he knew anything about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Guys...this must have been…” Shaking his head in wonder, Sunny looked to Kirian with disbelieving eyes. “I don’t know if I can…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s yours, Sunny. Without you, we wouldn’t have gotten here. And so much of what we have to do rests on your shoulders.” Kirian insisted, his voice still calm and as unnaturally blank as it always was. A rare smirk touched the corner of his mouth. “Besides, your cleaver is hardly the weapon of an officer.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raising an eyebrow at the playful jab towards his weapon, Sunny smiled at his teammates for a moment before it faded, instead replaced with a strong and confident look as he nodded, accepting it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seeing the acceptance in his team leader’s eyes, Kirian stepped forward and took the blade from him to help buckle it around his waist and allow it to sit perfectly at his side, Kirian having known his friend’s measurements off by heart so the belt was perfectly fitted on the first try.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Both Zav and Sunny knew that Kirian was an excellent engineer, but the sort of finesse weapon smithing associated with forging personalised blades, especially of infused dust, required a type of dedication and skill that Kirian normally had rarely had the time or freedom to apply to his work. But now he had nothing but free time, and a purpose that required patience.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Placing his left hand on the hilt of his new blade gently as it sat on his left hip, Sunny glanced down at it and let out a deep breath, finding confidence and reassurance in the feel of it. He knew Kirian, and he trusted him, so he knew it would be perfectly balanced and weighted. And he also knew that Kirian had strengthened and reinforced the metal for more than just to give it a peerless cutting edge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His cleaver had required regular repairs from something that he suspected this new blade would be immune to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seeming to sense his intentions, Kirian stepped back and folded his hands behind his back again, watching as Sunny drew the blade slowly and elegantly before holding it in front of himself, both hands on the hilt and the blade pointing up towards the roof. With a ripple from his aura, Sunny barely needed to focus before the blade erupted into flames, though he kept them low and concentrated instead of flickering loudly. All three of them looked as the golden fire of Sunny’s aura and Semblance shimmered and wisped from the metal, and Sunny smiled in almost relaxation and confidence as he noted how the metal reacted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as he had suspected, there was no chance of his flames ever warping or weakening the metal, not as reinforced as it was. This was what Kirian had forged it to be able to handle. Allowing the flames to die out, the metal instantly cooling back to its normal temperature as Sunny manually pulled the heat back into himself, he looked at it in admiration and appreciation a moment longer before sliding it back into its sheath on his side, his eyes and hand lingering on it for a moment before he looked back up at Kirian.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...thank you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s my pleasure.” Kirian nodded, back straight and confident and his eyes sharp. </span>
  <span>His assessment was an hour after Sunny’s so he had more time to kill, but unlike any other person on the planet he wasn’t nervous in the slightest. It wasn’t an emotion he was capable of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clearing his throat, Zav interrupted and gave an exhausted grin to them both. “Sadly the gifts I bring aren’t as flashy, but...perhaps just as important.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His face sobered towards the end of his sentence, and when Sunny frowned at him curiously he stood and picked up his folder from the bed beside him, and handing it over to his team leader as he stepped over to join them. </span>
  <span>Placing the folder down on the table, Sunny flipped it open and pulled out the papers and files inside, scanning through them and raising an eyebrow at one of the first papers in the collection, studying the guest list for the party that night. Blinking, he glanced at Zav with a questioning expression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you get any of this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been busy. The moment I heard your assessment was today, the same day as the party, I figured you’d need as much help as you could get. Besides…” Zav flicked through the folder until he found three paperclipped pages he was looking for, and handed them to Sunny with a grim look. “Some of the people you’re going to be dealing with have been busier than we might have wanted to think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scanning the papers he was handed, he frowned. Brief listings of the business dealings of the Gemgrind Coalition, a group of corporate vipers that Sunny had been aware of at each party they were at together and he’d been making sure to make small talk with, but the papers in his hands also noted several conflicts of interest with members of the council, and also a few other influential figures in the city.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t surprising to him that a group such as the Gemgrind Coalition were clearly in bed with the Schnee Dust Company, and it certainly explained a lot of the pull Jacques Schnee appeared to have on the council with certain members if they had the same investments.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The three of them had been wondering why excursions into the Deep Freeze were becoming more and more likely, as discussion on the matter had picked up steam.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Now it was starting to make sense.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shit…” Sunny breathed out in unsurprised exasperation, handing the papers to Kirian for the other boy to read in more detail, before looking over at Zav next to him. “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>been busy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got a lot more back at my house, but that folder is everything interesting I’ve got on the people on that guest list for tonight.” Giving a grim look, Zav shook his head in tired disgust, flicking through his folder and plucking out the papers he considered the most important, handing them to Kirian for the man to study and memorise. “Once you’re promoted Sunny, you’re so much more than just a Beacon veteran and noble heir. Everything gets more delicate, so...no more going into those events unarmed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking up from the papers he’d easily been able to memorise from one read, Kirian frowned and narrowed his eyes in thought, drumming his fingers on the papers lightly in thought. “So why does </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ironwood </span>
  </em>
  <span>want you out in the Deep Freeze? He can’t possibly think he can enforce an embargo and encourage resource excursions at the same time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure. But...well, numbers aren’t my strength, but this stuck out to me.” Zav shook his head, grabbing his scroll from his pocket and quickly going onto his private files and pulling up another file, flicking it onto the screen on the dormroom wall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Reading what was clearly an acquisition list for military resources, Kirian’s eyes quickly picked out the deficits in rare metal supplies needed for electronics, the sort of material consumed at an incredible amount by the Atlesian Knight program. Letting out a breath of understanding as he picked out the numbers, Kirian pointed them out to the others.<br/></span>
  <span>Meanwhile Sunny simply raised a questioning eyebrow at Zav for the sort of information he’d been getting his hands on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Either Zav had been making liberal use of the contacts he’d been making within Mantle and Atlas, or he’d been using his Semblance. Each would be surprising to Sunny for different reasons. Technically none of the information he had was illegal or classified, it was all just about knowing where to look and who to ask for details.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>And that was where Zavraii shined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking at the numbers, and the clear connections that were in place and the ambitions at play, the three of them glanced at each other. All of a sudden it was apparent just how lucky they’d been to have their opportunities handed to them. With Kirian inside of the R&amp;D division, he could keep an eye on resource usage. With Sunny placed inside the SDC as a military liaison, he’d have all shipment information at his fingertips while also having an ear to what the SDC itself was getting out of the deal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Zav was perfectly placed where he was already.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Closing the file that was open on the wall monitor, Zav slid his scroll back into his pocket, and the three of them looked between each other, the same thoughts occurring to each of them at the same time.</span>
  <span></span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay…” Sunny nodded as he put thoughts into place, his eyes lingering on the now blank monitor for a moment before he looked at the other two properly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kirian, read as much in that folder as you can before the party tonight so you can send me briefing notes as I might need them. Zav, try and find any sort of zoning information you can on where the Coalition are poking their noses in the most and send it through to me, I can look at the patrol deployment list and see if Ironwood is focusing on the same areas.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nodding in immediate agreement, Kirian scooped the folder from the table and instead flopped down on his bed to immediately begin reading, grabbing his full-sized tablet from his bag to keep open next to him to take notes, meanwhile Zav stayed near Sunny and fixed him with a cautious look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be careful tonight. You understand even better than I do just how much scrutiny is going to be on you after today.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. We haven’t made any mistakes yet. We just need to stay focused.” Sunny put his hand on Zav’s shoulder reassuringly and gave him a confident look, before stepping back in the direction of the door. “For now though, I...have a meeting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grinning from where he was laying on his bed, Kirian’s eyes flicked up from what he was reading and met Sunny’s. “Good luck. We both know you’re more likely than I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be late for yours.” Sunny smiled back, giving them both warm and confident nods, turning to click open the door, and taking a step out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good luck Sunny. And...congratulations on it in the first place.” Zav smiled, his hands sliding into his pockets. “Plan or not, you do deserve this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks Zav.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>+=+=+</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Restraint</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Delilah and Kakra arrive at Salem's castle for a meeting that could decide both of their fates, and Delilah takes advantage of the opportunity to conduct some work in her laboratory while Salem demands to speak to Kakra in private.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Approaching the black crystal steps of Salem’s palace, Delilah seemed to Kakra to be entirely at peace and comfortable, glancing around at the surrounding black pits and the numerous Grimm constantly emerging and forming from them.<br/>Her hands were folded behind her back as she calmly walked along the dusty ashen ground of the domain, dressed in her battle armour for the first time in weeks with her grappling whips attached to her arms in their retracted and concealed state. Allowing her more mutated appearance to rise to the surface since arriving in the domain of darkness, her sickly green eyes were sharp as they took in all the details of what was happening around them, and her face was impassive and curious.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Kakra felt a constant thrum of excitement and energy underneath her skin as she followed, looking around with more eager curiosity and a thrilled shine in her eyes while she watched Grimm emerge from the nearby pools, the creatures seeming to regard her for a few moments before always shrinking back with low growls, too cautious to approach her. Grimm had been afraid of her since she'd evolved, seeming to sense the numerous conflicting sources of power and energy inside of her and recognising that she wasn’t even <em> slightly </em> prey.<br/>Looking down at the skin of her arms as her aura rippled again, she saw the thin veins of black blood underneath her skin pulsing more vibrantly than usual, responding to the dark energy of the place.</p><p>All that was audible was a low wind, and the bubbling of the nearby pits, otherwise it was completely silent as they finally reached the steps and began to make their way up. Delilah finally glanced behind her and met Kakra’s eyes, raising her eyebrows in question, and Kakra shook her head to reassure her that nothing was wrong and that she was alright. Just...energised, as if she was drinking in the energy around them.<br/>The black flesh in her was gulping in power from their surroundings, and her auras were making <em> great </em> use of it.<br/>She could feel how much stronger she was currently.</p><p>Pausing outside of the massive doors of the structure, a simple thought from Delilah had them swing open slowly for them to step inside. The inside was even more silent than outside, without even a breeze or the bubbling of the pits, instead the only sound were their footsteps.</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll know we’re here.” Delilah spoke softly as she walked, her voice coming out smooth and unnatural, and her eyes flashed when she glanced to Kakra. “Don’t disappoint. Otherwise this is likely your last day.”</p><p>“I...understand, mum.” Nodding confidently and firmly, Kakra rippled her wings slightly to dispel any dust that had gathered on them. “I won’t let you down.”</p><p>“Good girl. I know you won’t.” Delilah’s face went from stern to loving, a soft smile blooming on her lips and her eyes pulsing visibly but gently. “Even if you die today, know that I love you. You’re my firstborn.”</p><p>Smiling back, a warmth in her chest, Kakra nodded in understanding before letting out a sigh and a smirk. “But fingers crossed?”</p><p>“Yes, love. Fingers crossed.” Chuckling, Delilah looked straight ahead again, leading the way towards the large cathedral-esque meeting room.</p><p> </p><p>As she expected, it wasn’t vacant when they arrived. While most of their order were away on their numerous missions and tasks, Cinder was in residence as she went through the training of her maiden powers, which meant that her lackeys were present as well. Thankfully, Salem had clearly dismissed the three of them, wanting to meet with Delilah alone.</p><p>Stepping into the hall with Kakra at her side, Delilah didn’t react when the doors swung closed behind them gently, and Salem herself turned from where she had been looking out of the large windows on the far side of the room, her hands folded behind her back. Dropping to a knee as Salem looked at her, Delilah gave the woman a confident smile.</p><p>“It’s good to see you again, ma’am.”</p><p>A small smile twitched at the corners of Salem’s lips as she regarded the girl, noting with satisfaction that her mutations had accelerated even further since the night she had given Delilah her black flesh. In between working on her children, Delilah had clearly also been experimenting on herself, and her physique was showing the results, with most of the deformities she had developed during her work at Beacon, a result of working with impure flesh, having been carefully removed by the girl now that she had control over the flesh on a cellular level.<br/>She would forever be eerily unnatural, underneath the guise she wore around other people which made her look normal enough to blend in on the street, but didn’t hold up under any scrutiny.</p><p>But she was obeying Salem’s orders, and refusing to wear her visage while in Salem’s domain, allowing her true appearance to shine through. It made Salem smile slightly wider as she appreciated the twisted view. While Delilah would forever be beautiful, it would never be a natural beauty ever again. Instead of alluring, she would now forever be predatory.</p><p>“Delilah...you didn’t delay.”</p><p>“Of course not, ma’am.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p> </p><p>When Salem’s eyes then moved to the still standing and lost Kakra, she studied the girl with a stare, and noted that Kakra didn’t look away even as the girl gave a slightly clumsy bow, nor did she seem to have any trouble meeting her gaze at all. There wasn’t any fear, but there also wasn’t any rush of confidence as if she was fighting <em> through </em>fear. Instead she was simply just...holding her gaze.</p><p>“Welcome, child.” Salem hummed in curiosity as she took a step forward, folding her hands in front of herself as she flicked her eyes up and down Delilah’s creation. “Kakra, I believe?”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.” The winged girl nodded, her eyes pulsing a steady red. Being so deep within the domain of darkness, on the surface of the pools themselves, she felt...giant.</p><p> </p><p>Through Salem’s eyes, Kakra was <em> vibrant.  </em></p><p> </p><p>A clashing and swirling maelstrom of multiple auras, black blood, and hints of magic, mixing together without any stability inside of a beautiful and intimidating form. The more she looked, the more Salem understood why the grimm refused to approach the girl, and actively bent under her presence.<br/>There was just enough human in her that Grimm noticed her, but...everything about her was too twisted, too different, too <em> distorted, </em>for her to be seen as anything except...a predator. While most Grimm didn’t have survival instincts, the more powerful ones knew which fights to pick and which ones to leave alone.</p><p>And Salem suspected that Kakra would always be given a <em> very </em>wide berth.</p><p>Beautiful.<br/>Truly, truly beautiful.</p><p> </p><p>Smiling in satisfaction, Salem gave an approving nod to Delilah, who took that as her cue to straighten up again. “You’ve outdone yourself, Delilah.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Glancing over at Kakra, Delilah smiled as she regarded her. “She’s more than I could have hoped for.”</p><p>“And you know where you went wrong for the future?”</p><p>“Yes ma’am. I have...a few ideas.”</p><p> </p><p>Humming in acknowledgement, Salem gracefully closed the distance to the two of them, and cupped Kakra’s chin with her fingertips. Staring into the girl’s deformed eyes, pulsing such a rich and vibrant red they were <em> beyond </em>crimson, Salem saw…</p><p>What did you create if you took everything in a grimm that hates all life, that hungers, that craves destruction and bloodshed and pain...and gave it a heart that could fall in love with those things, in the way that only humans can love?<br/>And make it so that those things were the <em> only </em>things that could be loved?</p><p> </p><p>Chuckling, Salem ghosted her fingertips along Kakra’s jaw and took a few strands of her long hair between her fingers for a brief moment before letting them fall away. Pausing in thought for a few moments, Salem folded her hands in front of herself again before turning her head to Deliah and giving a polite dismissive nod.</p><p>“I’m going to speak with Kakra <em> alone </em>. I’m sure you have business in the castle to conduct?”</p><p>Hesitating for a moment, Delilah felt a small pang of anxiety in her chest that quickly faded under the small smile that Salem was still giving her. Giving a respectful bow, she nodded, and gently took Kakra’s hand for a moment as she straightened.</p><p>“I do. There are some Semblances I collected from Beacon that I’m considering for my next child. I’ll be in my quarters looking over them and working. I’m at your disposal, ma’am.”</p><p>“Good. We shall discuss your future designs later.”</p><p>Salem gave a short nod to her, and Delilah squeezed Kakra’s hand and shared a smile with her daughter before she let go and stepped away, leaving the large hall and the doors closing behind her.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at the doors that her mother had just disappeared through, Kakra took in a deep and apprehensive breath before giving Salem a curious but respectful look, and Salem gestured for her to follow. Walking back to the far side of the hall and stopping at the massive glass windows again, Salem looked out over the vast unchanging sands and dark pits of the realm of darkness, constantly spewing out Grimm and poisoning the air with fumes from the waters of death that ran through the dead desert almost like rivers.<br/>Stepping up next to her, Kakra followed her stare and looked out over the twisted landscape as well, her unnaturally sharp eyes flitting from each sign of movement as she took in each of the Grimm in sight, and the pits they’d emerged from.</p><p>“You’ve been eating Grimm.”</p><p>Blinking at Salem’s curious but otherwise smooth and controlled tone, Kakra wasn’t sure whether to be worried or not. It was true, she had been.</p><p>And animals.</p><p>And people.</p><p>And her siblings.</p><p>Anything she could get her hands on, really.</p><p>It was...<em> so </em> hard to stop. So why bother trying? It felt good, it <em> tasted </em> good, and each thing she ate...it felt like it made her stronger. More complete.<br/>….and it really <em> really </em> did taste good.<br/>So she smiled.</p><p>“Yes ma’am...how did you know?”</p><p>“I can feel it in you. In your flesh.”</p><p>“In my...<em> flesh? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>In response to Kakra’s confused tone, Salem glanced over at her and gestured with the fingers of her hand. At the movement, Kakra shivered and almost hunched as a roiling spasm went through her body and the black tendrils and veins underneath her skin rose to the surface, protruding from her body and ruining her perfect pale complexion with a web of dark and ebbing lines and bumps, connecting each muscle and limb and bone from her feet up to her eyes. While there was no white in her eyes to begin with, the black began to pulse just as the red of her pupils did, and she felt her wings shimmer as her black feathers glimmered for a moment.</p><p>Conscious thought briefly flickered away from her mind and was replaced with only the ceaseless dark always beneath the surface of her thoughts, fuelling and controlling each one. It wasn’t hatred, or hunger, it was simply <em> something dark, </em>and as it took dominance her wings snapped open violently as she let out a pushed gasp and exposed her razor sharp teeth, squeezing her eyes shut so she didn’t stare out the window and see prey she wasn’t sure she’d be able to resist going for.</p><p> </p><p>“No. Look.”</p><p> </p><p>Another small twitch of Salem’s finger had another pulse go through her, and Kakra obediently opened her eyes and looked out, taking in the movement outside as the Grimm responded to the overwhelming pulses of energy coming from inside. But instead of sniffing the air to taste the fear of a living thing, instead each one felt cackles stand warily.<br/>Kakra snapped her wings open and closed again, and the concussive air released by her Semblance swept through the room with enough force that the chairs in the room were flung away and even the heavy stone table creaked and groaned, while Salem herself had to slide a foot back slightly to brace against the sheer weight and power behind the blast, as Kakra’s powerful and corruptive black flesh infected her Semblance and empowered it, fuelled by her recent feasting.</p><p>Watching as the girl’s nails extended into claws and her fangs grew slightly larger and more pronounced, Salem raised an eyebrow at the little gifts and tricks that her mother had given to her and reminded herself to speak with Delilah in private later in the day. For now though, her interest was purely in the monster next to her, as Kakra’s features twisted and were pushed to the most infected and mutilated they could become, looking far beyond any connection to humanity, with only a barbarised resemblance to the original form.</p><p>“Are you hungry?”</p><p> </p><p>Barely hearing Salem’s voice, Kakra nodded savagely, her eyes flicking from prey to prey outside of the massive windows and every muscle in her body tensed in restraint. While she didn’t <em> need </em> to breathe in order to live, she was panting in effort to hold herself even as her tongue swirled around in her mouth and she felt herself <em> salivating </em> at the thought. Her blood needed it, she <em> needed </em> it, and seeing a miniscule smile of approval from Salem in the corner of her eye was all the permission she needed.<br/>The windows of the hall shattered into dust, as with a single powerful and enhanced flap of her wings Kakra smashed straight through the one in front of her with enough force that this time Salem <em> was </em>sent stumbling back a few paces, and the heavy table in the center of the room tipped onto its side and slid away, the rest of the furniture in the room having been completely tossed and cracked from impacts against the far wall.</p><p>Salem watched with a pleased smile as Kakra ravaged the plains below, almost a blur of teeth and claws and gusts of wind as even the heavy numbers of Grimm meant nothing to her, latching onto each prey and rising into the air to tear massive chunks out of each one with her teeth and swallow greedily, before latching her mouth onto the wounds and drinking them dry of blood in only a matter of moments, her eyes wide and unblinking, and the writhing black veins under her skin squirming and pulsing wildly enough that it was visible even from a distance.</p><p>Her strength was truly impressive as even Creeps were lifted into the air and their necks snapped, only to then be devoured just the same. The fields were soon decorated in splashes of black blood and the dust of dead grimm disintegrating into death. But Salem knew that Kakra would continue as long as there were prey for her to go for, unless she was stopped.</p><p>She wasn’t surprised when the doors to the hall were thrown open, and Cinder and her two pawns rushed in, having been drawn in by the loud smashing and anticipating danger. While their eyes all searched wildly around the destroyed room in adrenaline-fuelled panic, when they all saw Salem standing calmly by a massive hole in the wall which had once been the far window, seemingly calm and composed as always, Cinder held up a hand to Mercury and Emerald for them to stay back, before she slowly approached her queen.</p><p>Unable to speak, she simply stayed a few steps away, knowing she had been noticed. Salem was silent for a few moments, still looking out and watching Kakra’s rampage, before speaking.</p><p>“Leave, Cinder. I cannot guarantee your safety currently.”</p><p> </p><p>Almost as if to punctuate her point, another powerful gust of wind blew through the shattered windows as Kakra flapped her wings as powerfully as she could far below, sending Grimm flying violently enough that many dusted immediately upon crashing into rocks and rubble with enough force to break them, and the dust brought up by the massive gust of wind briefly obscuring Salem’s vision of the carnage below.<br/>Hesitating for a few moments, Cinder tentatively approached further to peak out and glance at what her queen was keeping an eye on, and she widened her eyes at the creature that she saw, her mouth dropping open slightly. She looked up at her queen in confusion, still unable to speak from the damage done to her lungs and throat.</p><p>“Her name is Kakra. Delilah’s true firstborn.” Salem gave Cinder a cold smile. “A new ally.”</p><p> </p><p>At hearing Delilah’s name, Cinder flinched and looked out at Kakra again, her eyes picking out the human form underneath the horrific mutations, and her stomach clenched as she understood what she was seeing, even without being able to study the girl up close. The Behemoths used to assist in the destruction of Beacon, smashing through the protection of the city, had been truly monsters.<br/>If this girl down below was the next step…</p><p>Cinder stepped away, a lump in her gut that she didn’t want to acknowledge.</p><p>Almost as if on cue, another gust of wind was felt, but instead of being used as a form of attack it was instantly followed by the black-winged figure appearing and dropping down onto the stone outcrop just outside the window with a powerful impact, black blood dripping from her lips and chin and her claws and arms splattered with flesh and gore that painted her white skin black, which greyed her already black-veined body further.<br/>While Kakra’s eyes flicked to Cinder immediately, and Mercury and Emerald behind her, and they widened in hunger, Salem held up a hand before Kakra could take another step forward and the winged girl staggered to a stop. Over the course of a few moments, with Salem’s assistance, the black blood sank back underneath Kakra’s form, and the corruption retreated, paling her flesh and clearing away from her appearance as much as it could.</p><p>But consuming as much flesh and blood as she had, had boosted her own black blood to staggering degrees, so even once the veins had faded again her eyes still pulsed and both her hair and feathers still shimmered with an impossible midnight darkness.</p><p> </p><p>Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly as her mind cleared and conscious thought returned, Kakra folded her wings back up and straightened, rolling her head as if to crack her neck, and with Salem’s permission she hopped over the broken windowsill back inside, and shivered in pleasure at the rush going through her.<br/>With the amount of dark running through her body now, she felt like she could do anything.</p><p>She felt like a <em> goddess. </em></p><p>Regarding Cinder with a curious raised eyebrow, she accessed every memory her mother had of the girl, able to pull on her knowledge from their collected consciousness, and gave a small and unimpressed smile, but despite trying to make it polite it still came out as predatory. Cinder narrowed her eyes even as she fought the instinct to take a step back.</p><p>With a casual wave of Salem’s hand, the hall repaired itself, with dust and rubble sliding back into place and fresh dark crystal growing to fill the cracks and reform as if it had never been broken, the glass repairing and shimmering, and the furniture all returned to their original places. In only a few moments, the hall looked as if it had never been damaged or disturbed at all. The small staring contest between Kakra and Cinder soon ended, and Kakra looked to both Emerald and Mercury, who were looking at her with wide and horrified expressions. Emerald’s heart was in her throat and she felt her instincts <em> screaming </em> at her to either get between Kakra and Cinder, or run as far away as she could as <em> fast </em>as she could, meanwhile Mercury’s fight response was in full swing as he ground his feet into the floor and braced himself for any sign of threat from the creature.</p><p>After flicking her eyes between the two a few times, Kakra dismissed them from her notice and looked back to Salem, who was watching her patiently, studying her reactions and her behaviour as Kakra gradually continued to calm down and return to focus.</p><p>“How do you feel?” Salem asked her quietly, and Kakra looked to her with <em> wild </em>and burning eyes, her lips breaking into a wide smile as she ran the back of her hand along her mouth and chin to clear away as much of the blood as she could.</p><p>“I’m sure you can feel it, my queen.”</p><p> </p><p>Raising an eyebrow at the sheer confidence rushing through the girl, Salem couldn’t resist giving a small satisfied smile. She <em> could </em> feel what was going through the girl, fully fed and empowered from devouring dozens of prey. Right now, in this moment, if Kakra wanted to kill Cinder then Salem wasn’t sure how much of a fight her fall maiden would be able to put up. Not until Cinder was fully healed and trained.<br/>Right now, apart from Salem herself, Kakra was by far the most dangerous and powerful being in the room. The only other person in the castle who exceeded her in power would be Delilah herself, but fully fed...Kakra was barely an inch behind her, while in her normal state the power gap would be large.</p><p>Deep in thought, Salem found herself with her own ideas for Delilah’s future children. She hadn’t imagined the level of success that Delilah would have. </p><p>The possibilities...were infinite.</p><p><br/>She’d been conducting her own experiments on combining living beings with Grimm for well over a decade now, but she was approaching her experiments from the opposite direction, taking the black flesh as the base of the evolution. Meanwhile Delilah used living beings, with their intelligence and auras and emotions, as the template.<br/>The results were right in front of her.<br/>And Kakra wasn’t even close to the heights that Salem found herself believing that Delilah might accomplish.</p><p>What a prize she had acquired.</p><p>But Cinder, for her part, continued to stare at the girl in a mixture of horror and defensive confidence, a look which Kakra alternated between ignoring and raising an eyebrow at while waiting for further questions or orders from Salem, who stood watching the silent altercation quietly until she was satisfied it wouldn’t resort to any sort of proper confrontation, though she could feel the persistent hunger within Kakra’s blood. Not only that, but Kakra could smell the fear radiating from Emerald, and it had her desperate for a taste. When Salem saw Kakra’s eyes flick to the terrified girl, she knew it was time to break this up before Kakra’s restraint reached its limit.</p><p>“Cinder, leave.”</p><p> </p><p>Blanching at the dismissal, Cinder looked at Salem with wide and confused eyes, but when Salem raised her eyebrow she wilted after a few moments and nodded, bowing obediently if hesitantly before turning away, but not before shooting a last look to Kakra.</p><p>As Cinder and her lackeys stepped out of the large doors, Mercury muttered to them both as they left.</p><p>“So, it’ll only be a matter of time before the freak fills this place with her monsters.”</p><p>A gust of wind shot through the room, and in less than an instant a powerful hand wrapped around Mercury’s throat from behind and slammed him against the nearest wall violently, holding him up with his feet dangling off the ground as Kakra looked at him with wild and <em> livid </em>eyes, her fangs bared in fury. Cinder and Emerald barely had the reaction time to respond before Salem called out.</p><p>“Kakra. Calm yourself.”</p><p>“<b> <em>No-one calls my mother a freak</em> </b> .” Kakra responded angrily, shooting a furious look to Salem, who raised an eyebrow. Kakra looked back up to a struggling and suffocating Mercury, the boy’s aura threatening to crackle as he ran out of oxygen. “ <em> Nobody. </em>Let alone a scared little cripple like yourself.”</p><p>Cinder and Emerald watched in shock, Cinder with an arm out slightly to prevent Emerald from rushing to Mercury’s defense, while Salem spoke again with a slightly firmer voice, barely heard over the crunching sound of Kakra’s tight grip damaging Mercury’s aura.</p><p>“Kakra, don’t make me regret my decisions.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment, still glaring up at Mercury <em> hatefully, </em>Kakra seemed to be considering her options, weighing up whether or not protecting her mother’s honour was worth her life, before she snarled in anger and tossed Mercury aside, releasing him but with enough strength that he smacked into a nearby wall with enough force the crystal behind him cracked and his aura shattered. Emerald immediately rushed to Mercury’s side, only for the boy to brush her off as he shakily rose to his feet, seeming to consider driving his foot straight into the stomach of the horror that had attacked him, but something in Kakra’s wild stare instead had him suck in a breath and any urge to cause trouble was extinguished like a candle flame.</p><p>Still staring at Kakra in shock, and now no small degree of hostility, Cinder scoffed and turned away, not waiting for Emerald and Mercury to follow her as she strode away to obey her queen’s orders.</p><p>Controlling her breathing as she stared between Mercury and Emerald with a fierce anger, Kakra snarled one last time before turning back to the great hall, making sure her wings brushed enough air that her semblance sent the pair sprawling down the hallway. Making her way inside the meeting room, Kakra let out a steadying breath as the doors closed behind her.</p><p> </p><p>Her hands folded in front of herself, Salem hummed in cold amusement at the events.</p><p>“You’re certainly protective.”</p><p>“Ma’am, we both know what my mother is compared to someone like <em> him. </em> ”</p><p>“Even so, all have their uses, but only if they’re alive.” Raising a cold and scolding eyebrow at the girl, Salem tapped the fingers of her hand on the top of her other palm, staring until Kakra bent under it and looked down.</p><p>“...I understand.” Kakra’s face twitched as she swallowed down the last remnants of her rage. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Given your inexperience dealing with living people you’re not allowed to simply tear apart, I’ll accept your apology.” Giving a hum of amusement again, Salem turned to face out the nearest window in thought, her eyes narrowing. “Though speaking of...I believe I may have a mission perfect for you.”</p><p>“Whatever you need, ma’am.” </p><p>While Kakra felt almost...uncomfortable, at taking orders from someone who wasn’t her mother, Delilah had made it <em> very </em> clear to her that if either of them were to continue to survive, Salem commanded obedience without question. So despite the ball of hesitant rejection of the idea in her gut, she straightened. <br/>If Salem noticed, she didn’t acknowledge it.</p><p>“There’s a potential contact in Mistral that has been successfully eluding my efforts for some years now. Hiding with her tribe somewhere in the wilds.” There was a strange hybrid of a tone in her voice as she scoffed, which was a mixture of both derision and also...admiration. So Kakra raised her eyebrows. “It would be fortuitous to have her in our reach, whether or not she agreed to the terms I intend on offering her. It would simply be a matter of drawing her out...which I think you might have a great deal of fun doing for me.”</p><p> </p><p>While Kakra was listening curiously, she twitched when she felt a strange strain on the corner of her awareness, reaching out to her through the connection she shared with all of her siblings from what was clearly far away, barely an echo but still making it through. She suspected that if she wasn’t currently so empowered from her feast, she wouldn’t be able to feel it at all.<br/>One of her siblings was in trouble. Serious trouble.<br/><br/>Salem must have noticed her briefly freeze, and felt something within her, because she didn’t continue speaking and instead turned to face the girl again, raising an eyebrow curiously but otherwise saying nothing, simply waiting.</p><p>Feeling a lump in her gut as the pained distress filtered through, Kakra let out a heavy breath and shook her head to try and shake it from her mind, but the feeling continued to grow stronger and stronger until...nothing.<br/>Snuffed out like a flickering flame finally extinguished into only thin tendrils of smoke.</p><p>As the final echoes reached her mind, her eyes widened.</p><p>Her sister was no more.</p><p> </p><p>Feeling her blood spark in black rage, quickly growing into a fierce roar inside of herself at whoever had <em> dared </em> to harm her older sister, the only other girl Delilah trusted to go off into the wilds alone, Kakra clenched her fists tightly by her sides without enough force her muscles and bones creaked unnaturally from the strain, and she <em> felt </em>her eyes flash red and start to pulse. Closing them for a moment, she ran her tongue along the back of her top row of teeth in anger, but attempted to calm herself and hold herself all the same.</p><p>If she gave into her impulse, she would be halfway across the cursed pits by now and wouldn’t stop until she landed back in Mistral to hunt down and tear apart whoever had somehow been strong enough to put her sister into the ground.</p><p>Coming back to herself when a hand was placed gently on her head, she opened her eyes in surprise at the touch, to see Salem giving her a fake-sympathetic but also incredibly curious stare, as if coming to a decision that could backfire greatly.</p><p>“If I release you, and you do not return even if you achieve your goal...it will be a failure on your mother’s part, for pledging her children’s obedience.” Salem’s eyes sharpened with an ice cold stare, making the threat clear as glass.</p><p> </p><p>Sucking in a breath, Kakra was torn, painfully torn, so she did what any confused child does;</p><p>She asked her mum.</p><p>There was barely a moment's pause before she felt Delilah’s response wash through into her mind, a feeling of support and confidence and <em> fierce </em>grief and sorrow.</p><p>And above all, trust.</p><p>“I understand, ma’am.”</p><p>“Good. It’s time I spoke to your mother about the next stage of my plans for her.” Staring into Kakra’s eyes coldly in scrutiny for a few more moments, Salem gave a single simple nod of permission.</p><p>Nodding her gratitude, her anger still filling her head and body with enough noise she could barely <em> think </em>straight, Kakra gave a shaky half-bow before snapping her wings open and pushing off from the ground, and disappearing out of a skylight in the roof above with a single flap of her powerful wings.</p><p>Salem watched in curious anticipation through the large windows as Kakra quickly vanished into the distance, before making her own way out of the hall and towards Delilah’s laboratory.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Groaning in pain and focus, Delilah didn’t blink as she slowly used the fingers of her right hand to peel open her left bicep, unwrapping the skin and muscle tissue with grotesque ease. Black blood gushed from the wound in constant rivers as she bit her bottom lip and finished opening up her arm, the muscle tissue dangling uselessly and disconnected to reveal the inner tendons.</p><p>Running her tongue along her lips, a thrill of satisfaction going through herself at the pain, almost pleased in knowing she could still feel it even if she was gradually losing the ability to feel anything at all, Delilah looked down at the bowl on the table of crushed up earth and lightning dust powder mixed in with black blood and perfectly infused together. Reaching down with her usable hand, she placed it within the bowl and began to will the blood up her wrist. Sliding along almost like a slime, the congealed and mutated blood slid up along her arm and across her chest before crawling inside of her ripped open wound and beginning the agonising process of sealing in.</p><p>Closing her eyes to concentrate, Delilah took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as she felt the dust-infused blood beginning to circulate within her system and sink into her muscles as it passed them, drawing more and more out of the large bowl she had mixed up until her entire left arm and the left half of her torso was infused and enhanced.<br/>Feeling her flesh strengthening and hardening, she grinned in victory and easily sealed up the wound on her arm with barely a thought, before making sure the freshly repaired flesh was infused and hardened as well. Applying the same technique that she used to make her Behemoth generation impenetrable, but this time directly to herself, she clenched and unclenched the fingers of her left hand, her grin and eyes widening as she felt the enhanced strength in the muscles.</p><p>Slightly more concentration from her had the enhanced muscles and tendons soothe and return to their original sizes and proportions, hiding any signs that they were now enhanced and toughened to be practically impenetrable. It was a procedure she had mastered, and she was able to do it at scarily fast speeds and efficiency, but doing it to <em> herself </em> was slightly different and resulted in momentous amounts of pain.<br/>But after having proof that it worked with her left arm, repeating the procedure with the rest of her own limbs and muscle groups was simple enough, though by far the most complicated was when she was forced to open up the skin and muscles of her own face, conducting the procedure with her eyes closed and shivering as the flesh crawled in through her eyes and torn holes in her cheeks and jaw.</p><p>Cracking her neck when she was done, she examined her body and clenched each muscle group one by one, testing them as she started at her toes and worked up to her fingers and jaw. Satisfied it had worked, she examined herself in the mirror and took in her further mutated appearance. With every bit of black flesh she used and toyed with, her appearance changed slightly further, as if it was sinking into her very being with each drop she touched with her aura.</p><p>When she had first entered Salem’s service she’d been mutated to a point where she looked sickly and ghoulish, but her features were gradually sharpening and the grey of her skin was smoothing out to a pure snow white. Gradually growing more vampiric in appearance, though her eyes remained their pure and corrupt emerald green, the whites of her eyes replaced with a pure black.<br/>Use of her Semblance had prevented her from looking her age ever since she was fifteen. Now she’d never look like she was <em> any </em>age ever again. Detached from the natural flow and patterns of humanity, her work had made sure that she would never again have anything in common with the species she was trying so hard to evolve and assist.</p><p>Flicking her eyes up and down her appearance, she noted all the places that had once held scars from her prior failed attempts to change her own appearance with her Semblance, but the scars had since then been washed away and healed. Once the black flesh was infused into her, it obeyed her command in a way that her own living flesh hadn’t, and so her own body and appearance was hers to control.<br/>And as much as she hated it about herself, she’d given in to vanity and made sure to change all the things about herself she had considered to be imperfections.<br/>But when a person has no imperfections, they no longer look like a person.</p><p> </p><p>A knock on her door brought her out of her thoughts, and she pulled her jacket back on as she had the door open, giving Cinder a polite smile as the other woman nodded at her in greeting, stepping in with Mercury and Emerald right behind her. While Mercury gave her a curt nod of greeting as well, crossing his arms and hanging back, Emerald still refused to meet her eyes, instead gazing around the room until she realised the ingredients and tools she was looking at and instead kept her eyes on Cinder’s back.</p><p>Meanwhile Cinder gave Delilah a small polite smile of welcome.</p><p>“Cinder, you’re looking much better. How are you feeling?” Delilah made her way over and put her hands into her pockets casually, giving a warm smile.</p><p>Opening her mouth and closing it in a desire to respond, Cinder beckoned for Emerald to step up next to her, and she rasped into her ear.</p><p>Clearing her throat, Emerald stammered anxiously as she interpreted for her leader. “C-Cinder says she still can’t talk, but the arm is working properly. She’d like her throat fixed.”</p><p> </p><p>Raising her eyebrows for a moment before nodding in understanding, Delilah gestured to one of the numerous surgical slabs in her room for Cinder to sit on, and the woman cautiously did so, Mercury relaxing enough he began to wander around the room inspecting things, particularly the jars of brain extractions on the shelves that Delilah hadn’t taken with her to Mistral. When he reached out to pick one up, a sharp and vicious glare from Delilah had him reconsider, and he scoffed dismissively even as he obeyed her silent command.<br/><br/></p><p>Boxes of dust crystals, slabs of different metals, body parts from animals such as fangs and skulls, and <em> plenty </em> of spare human bones for her constructs, there were also jars of preserved extracts such as venom sacs, insect parts such as web spinners from spiders and scorpion tails…<br/>Mercury couldn’t deny that Delilah had certainly been busy, and that Salem was keeping her <em> very </em>well supplied. Clearly their queen intended on Delilah remaining in the castle for a while now, instead of sending her back to Mistral.</p><p>He was not particularly comfortable with the thought of the girl being in proximity for any period of time, but glancing over at her again and taking her in, she <em> seemed </em>to be far more sane than she’d been when he’d first met her.</p><p>But if the behaviour of her violent new pet was any indication, then any appearance of sanity was pure bullshit. Raising a hand to his bruised neck from Kakra’s stranglehold, he scowled.</p><p>Meanwhile Emerald was looking either at Cinder, or at the ground, lingering close to Cinder’s side but always just out of Delilah’s reach.</p><p> </p><p>Delilah hummed quietly in thought as she placed a hand on the side of Cinder’s throat and closed her eyes to examine the muscles and flesh. Repairing her arm had been impossible, forcing her to amputate the damaged flesh entirely and grow her a new one, because whatever it was that had caused the extreme amount of damage done to her had her body able to resist Delilah’s attempts to repair it.<br/>It was frustrating, and something she had never encountered before, but it had prevented her from fixing the woman’s eye as well, though she’d removed the burnt flesh easily enough. A vicious scar remained, but her eye had been completely cooked, and Delilah had no other choice but to extract it and condemn the woman to be half-blind, considering the strange resistance to her Semblance in the damaged flesh prevented Delilah from connecting a new eye in place of the old one, replacing it.</p><p>It was incredibly fascinating to her, even as it was frustrating and concerning. Cinder was living flesh, which her Semblance perfectly manipulated and had complete control over, yet wherever the white light had hurt her...it was like her attempts to mutate it either slid right off or were deflected entirely.<br/>God, what Delilah would be willing to do to get her hands on some silver eyes to examine them. But Salem had made it clear that experiments with silver eyes would purely be for her own work, and that Delilah wasn’t to intervene.</p><p>There was clearly something about them that Salem didn’t want Delilah to discover, and as much as that had Delilah vexed and frustrated, she’d obey those orders.</p><p>Sadly, it meant there was little she could do for Cinder. Though there was some good news.</p><p> </p><p>Opening her eyes after feeling along the damaged tissue in Cinder’s throat and lungs, she kept her hand on Cinder’s neck even as she gave an apologetic smile, stroking the skin softly with her fingertips.</p><p>“It’s healing well, but the silver-eyes magic means there’s little I can do to force them to repair any further. But you’ll be able to talk again soon, gradually. Well in time for the attack on Haven. But it’s a matter of practice and patience now.”</p><p>Blinking, Cinder scowled in frustration and knocked Delilah’s hand from touching her, before standing again and silently snarling in frustration, looking away. Clenching her fists in anger, Cinder felt small flickers of flame emerge from her hands, and she closed her eyes to forcibly relax them. But now that there was nothing Delilah could do for her, she was having trouble swallowing her anger any further.</p><p>Narrowing her eyes, Delilah was able to tell there was something else, and she raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”</p><p>She had her suspicions. She’d felt Kakra’s rage.<br/><br/>In fact it was amazing to her that Mercury was still alive.</p><p> </p><p>While Emerald leant in to interpret whatever it was Cinder would want to say, the girl instead simply stared into Delilah’s eyes, glaring into her eyes as she tried to think of exactly how to portray what she was thinking. Cinder was forced to wander the castle aimlessly in-between training with her new powers and trying to recover from her injuries, meanwhile this <em> girl </em> got to roam free and conduct horrific experiments without supervision.<br/>And the results of her experiments?<br/>A being that could have killed both Mercury and Emerald before Cinder had the reflexes to intervene, if Kakra had coldly wanted to instead of acting purely out of fury. While Cinder didn’t particularly care about the Mercury and Emerald part, it was more the implication of Kakra’s power that infuriated her.</p><p>How had Delilah just slid into this sort of position? Where did this power come from?</p><p>Why was Delilah, this <em>child</em>, allowed to be so strong and able to give such strength to others, and then command such obsession and devotion from them?</p><p>Unable to think of how to word her outrage and her frustration, Cinder was simply forced to glare hatred into Delilah’s eyes, the other girl meeting her stare impassively but unblinkingly.</p><p> </p><p>As Cinder’s anger rose and she began to radiate heat, Delilah’s own aura began to radiate as well in response, giving off pulsing unnatural waves of the same black energy that ebbed from Salem at all times.</p><p>It was enough for both Emerald and Mercury to be simply reduced to watching the staring confrontation without the ability to breath in more than slight gulps, as if an ocean of weight was in the room and crushing down on them as Cinder’s and Delilah’s auras rose and filled the room with their pressure. Flames licked Cinder’s hands and arms, while black tendrils slowly rose to the surface of Delilah’s skin as her mutations slowly began to properly emerge, the green in her eyes starting to pulse even as Cinder’s own eye began to give off the signature flames of a maiden.<br/>Then something seemed to enter Delilah’s blood, as the woman’s eyes widened and her black tendrils bloomed into existence aggressively, her muscles tensing as something swept through her and gripped her tightly, but instead of completely distracting her it instead only served to escalate the hostility in the room.</p><p>The two women stared silently for what was only half a minute, but for Mercury and Emerald it felt like an hour, the weight of the power in the air almost having Emerald’s knees give out, while Mercury had every muscle tense and ready for the inevitable first strike to be thrown in what would be a fight he could feel in his gut might tear the castle itself apart. Might tear <em> him </em>apart even if he was just in the same room.</p><p>He forced himself to swallow a lump in his throat</p><p>And then, with Emerald’s eyes widening, the unthinkable happened.<br/><br/></p><p>Cinder blinked first.</p><p> </p><p>The heat dissipated from the room as Cinder unconsciously submitted, and the woman looked away with a snarl and turned, storming out of the room in a hostile and furious stride while throwing the door open before it had the chance to open on its own.</p><p>A few moments of silence in the room passed as Delilah simply pulled her mutations back under her skin and went back to work, mixing up more blood, while Mercury and Emerald stood as still as statues, Emerald in an intense sweat from the tension that had been building to a point she had felt almost as if she was being crushed from all sides.</p><p>Slowly, Mercury recovered first and made his way towards the door, grabbing Emerald’s shoulder on the way out.</p><p> </p><p>Surprising herself, Emerald spared one last glance over her shoulder as the pair left, only to stumble when she caught Delilah watching her leave with a curious and <em> concerned </em>frown on her face, her eyes narrowed in scrutiny, before the door closed behind them and cut Delilah off from sight.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Another short-ish one this time. The pace is picking up now, so chapters might be a bit shorter than they have been up until this point.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Fracture</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As team LAVA continue their journey through the forest after an ambush by a strange creature, Kakra is on the hunt for whoever it was that killed her sister.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW; Violence and gore</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The small clearing hadn’t existed before the fight had started.</p><p>Smaller trees were shattered and destroyed, rocks had been blown away by impacts, small bushes turned to ash by plasma shots. A basic trek through the forest had been brought to a standstill by an ambush that there was no way to prepare for, coming from the skies. Blood splattered nearby leaves, and the dirt if your eyes were sharp enough, from wounds that were already sealing and closing through the power of aura.<br/><br/>Pulling her blade from the body of the strange creature, Lily slumped back panting with her eyes closed, catching her breath and letting her diamond skin recede and return to its normal complexion. Alice crouched nearby in a similar state, coughing up blood from an internal injury that was gradually sealing up, her arms and face a mess of scratches that weren’t quite deep enough to leave scars, but were bleeding nonetheless.</p><p>Nearby, Lucy’s aura crackled from exertion, having been forced to hold a dome over the area to prevent the twisted mutated Grimm from flying away and escaping them, as it had ended up attempting to retreat. But they’d realised quickly that this was the creature responsible for the Huntsmen that were disappearing in the area, and they had refused to let it escape in order to kill again later, not while they had the advantage.<br/>The creature had made the wrong decision to attack Angel first out of all of them, and though it had brought her to the ground with the sheer force behind its crashing tackle, Angel had escaped all injury as her immense aura had healed her bruises before she’d taken her next breath.</p><p>It had been fast, impossibly fast, but they’d fought fast Grimm before. Its advantage was in the fact it could <em> think </em>, or at the very least it had more evolved instincts than the average Grimm. While that was the trait that had likely made it impossible for other Huntsmen to kill, team LAVA had been at the fall of Beacon, and had fought creatures of the same type before. While not this particular ‘breed’, the behaviour was similar enough to make it predictable, and it had only been a matter of time before a well placed shot from Lucy’s trident had removed one of its wings and trapped it to the ground.</p><p> </p><p>Releasing the dome around the clearing finally, and allowing her aura to retract back into her body and stabilise, Lucy slumped, forced to support her weight on her trident in order to remain standing. Shaking her head to dislodge her fatigue, she looked across her body at the numerous bleeding cuts from claws that had reached the parts of her skin that her otherwise impressive armour did not protect, and even some sections that the reinforced claws had pierced straight through metal padding to get to, digging deep and causing blood to soak through the underlayer of her uniform, dyeing the otherwise white fabric of her shirt a dark red.</p><p>Groaning as her aura reestablished and began to close the wounds, sealing them over and leaving faint shimmering scars that joined the momentous amount already present on her body, Lucy looked over all of her companions to check on them, unsurprised to see Angel already back on her feet and hesitantly making her way over to the others, her eyes guarded and wavering as she looked at the horror the others were crouched next to, as Alice had joined Lily over by the body and was studying it with a look of pure horror on her face as she took in the human features.</p><p>Joining them, Lucy slumped down onto her knees in battle-exhaustion as she looked down at their opponent who had done a fair job handling them four-on-one. Letting out a held breath as she took in the remaining signs of humanity that lingered in the corpse, with broken bloodied bones from where she had severed its wings, the large fangs and claws that had replaced normal human teeth and fingernails, and the grey paleness to the skin that identified her as yet another variation of the monsters they’d fought at Beacon.</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck…” Alice let out a breath as she carefully studied the body with her medic’s eyes, running her fingers over mutated muscles and joints, bones where there shouldn’t be bones. “...same creation?”</p><p>“Same creation.” Nodding shakily, Angel joined her, doing her own slow study but knowing the conclusion.</p><p> </p><p>The four of them sat in silence, exhaustion wearing off and instead being replaced with sickening dread as they looked down at their victim. Even when Alice and Angel finished their examination and sat back, nothing was said for a while, Lucy closing her eyes in almost resignation as her head drooped in tiredness.<br/>She was just so tired.</p><p>Eventually Lily’s voice broke the silence, her eyes heavy and still on the dead harpy. “...who was she?”</p><p>“Nobody we know. Probably just a local.” Angel shook her head, unclipping her weapon from her arm so she could run her hands over her face and cross her arms over her chest. “Early-twenties, I think. With what’s been done to her...I can’t be super accurate.”</p><p>“...right.” Lily nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. “Makes sense.”</p><p> </p><p>Letting out an exhausted and stressed laugh, manic in tone and almost a cough, Lucy opened her eyes and looked up at the heavens with a lazy tilt of her head before looking to the others, particularly Angel and Alice.<br/>“How are these things coming to life? These were <em> people. </em>Even at Beacon. How is this happening? Here, in Mistral as well? Some new kind of Grimm?”</p><p>“Maybe? Maybe. I don’t know.” Angel shook her head apologetically. “If it was possible to get her back to the hospital in the city I’d be able to do a proper autopsy and I’d be able to tell you. But out here? I don’t know.”<br/>“Could be some sort of Grimm parasite.” Frowning in thought, but her eyes sad, Alice reached out and opened the woman’s dead eyes, studying the colour of them.</p><p>That thought was horrifying to all of them, even the two with no medical training. The very idea of a Grimm that could mutate living people and turn them into Grimm hybrids. Spreading like a disease.<br/>But as far as was known, Grimm didn’t reproduce. So a Grimm parasite shouldn’t <em> spread </em> on its own.<br/>The amount of possible explanations, all horrifying, flew through Alice and Angel’s minds at a rapid speed, and they kept glancing at each other in synchronised thoughts, while Lily and Lucy alternated between looking at their surroundings, or looking down at the dead girl the two doctors were examining.</p><p>But eventually too much time passed, and Lucy became aware of the movement of the sun in the sky above them, leading her to thin her lips and clear her throat regretfully.<br/>“I’m sorry, but...we have to keep moving on, if we want to be somewhere safer by dark.”</p><p> </p><p>Without much hesitation, Lily rose to her feet and clicked her swords together before shifting them to her rarely-used rifle form, feeling more on edge as she cocked the lever-action to chamber the dust round. The fact she was switching to her rifle at all had the other three surprised and wary, if she felt the need to be even more on-guard.<br/>Frowning as she was stared at, she spoke as if it was obvious.</p><p>“We don’t know if there are any more. This time we got lucky, it hit Angel first, but it got her before we even had time to react. We’ve never fought anything this fast before.”</p><p> </p><p>Carefully readjusting how the body was laying so it was more straightened out and dignified, Alice and Angel looked down at her, though she was too mutated to look peaceful or at rest, any chance of peace taken away from her by what had been done to her in a way they wished they had the time and ability to try and understand, for her sake.</p><p>Lily and Lucy watched calmly, waiting for the other two to stand and join them so they could move on. There was a smaller village only a few hours trek away where they would be able to spend the night, even if there wasn’t an inn they would at least be able to set up their camp nearby, even just for the proximity to other people that was instinctually comforting and relaxing. But for now they were just four girls in the middle of the forest that had just fought and killed a victim of...something. Something far worse and far more evolved than the variation that had torn down what was believed to be the second strongest city in the world, just behind Atlas and its military might.<br/>But that military might had been at Beacon as well, and yet alongside the Grimm these twisted horrors made out of people had ripped through the academy itself.</p><p> </p><p>The four of them remembered the courtyard, slipping on the bloodied stone pavings as their comrades and classmates weren’t just killed, but were <em> devoured, </em> and that had been before the taller, stronger, and nearly indestructible giants had shown up. The burn scars from Angel’s actions that had saved them were still visible, giving a silver shine to the flesh of her right arm and splotches of the right side of her neck and face. <br/>It had been a hell of a cost to pay.</p><p>And what they had just fought? She had been so much faster, so much smarter. While her flesh wasn’t as thick and she didn’t have the same pure raw power, she didn’t need it, her speed and cunning more than made up for it, along with her ability to fly.</p><p>If it hadn’t attacked Angel first, they might not all have made it out alive. And if Lucy hadn’t trapped it with a dome, it might have escaped to heal and then hunt again. <br/>They’d gotten lucky.</p><p>There was no way of knowing how many more of them were out there. The Huntsmen they had replaced had mentioned only one, but there was no way of disproving that others weren’t out hunting in different territories, but as singular hunters.</p><p>What the hell were they up against? What was creating these?<br/>Nothing like this had existed before the Fall of Beacon. <br/>What had changed, that night?</p><p> </p><p>Lucy would tear herself to pieces thinking over it, but for now she didn’t have time, so she brought her trident to a ready position as the other two girls joined them and they were able to continue moving, Alice throwing one last look over her shoulder at the body of the mutated girl they were forced to leave lying out and un-tended to, without even having shovels to dig a grave.</p><p>They continued on silently, none of them having any idea what there even was to say, but they all jumped every time there was a sound in the skies above, waiting for the same sounds they had heard right before they were ambushed. But no more of those horrors came for them, the skies had only birds, and clouds gathering for a forest’s winter storm.</p><p>A storm of frost and ice, and leaves shriveling and falling from branches with seemingly no causes.</p><p> </p><p>Atlas had its snow that could drown a person like an ocean crushing you from above and driving you down into the white graveyard. Vale’s winters delivered soft snow, but heavy rains that turned mud into grit underfoot and froze your clothes to your skin. Vacuo’s winters were slow, and draining, as the cold feel of frozen desert sands led you to such an agonising exhaustion you would be tempted to lay down on them and sleep, never to wake.</p><p>But Mistral...Mistral’s winters decayed everything their winds touched. Leaves greyed on the branch, colour sapped from the grasses and stones and even people’s eyes under the relentless brushstrokes of silent and invisible frost coming from permanent grey clouds above. You couldn’t feel joy while in that dead frozen air, or feel comfort, or satisfaction. It sank into your bones even through your aura and chewed you up.</p><p> </p><p>Mistral was the country that celebrated spring, because spring was the season that saved them.</p><p> </p><p>But it was a couple of months off still, and the girls weren’t so sure they’d even be home in time for the weather to change.</p><p>They were each so tired. Their packs felt like they weighed tons, their weapons were cold and unbalancing in how they dragged down their arms to hold, their feet sank into the dead leaves and early underneath their feet as if the ground itself wanted to bury them inch by inch.<br/>But they had to keep going. No matter how tired they were, no matter how demoralised.</p><p>Lucy spun the retracted handle of her trident around in her grip elegantly as she walked, her mind beleaguered and burdened by all of what she was forced to consider and plan for. Every night she stayed up until ungodly hours poring over maps and numbers, but nothing ever changed. No great revelation or insight.<br/>It always landed on the same truth.</p><p>This was a <em> war </em>. </p><p>They were fighting a proper war. </p><p> </p><p>But they didn’t know the sides, or the stakes. It made them pawns, which meant that if they wanted any sort of control back they had to discover who was the one moving them. They even needed to figure out the true scale of the board. Lucy liked chess, and with her mind for strategy the only other person who had ever consistently been a challenging match was Headmaster Lionheart himself, the man’s normally skittish demeanor fading away the moment he was looking at his pieces, and instead revealing a shrewd cunning.<br/>Perhaps it was only when there were no stakes that the man who had at one point earned his seat as Headmaster emerged from within his timid shell.</p><p>While she didn’t delude herself into thinking she understood him, she was willing to believe she’d spotted signs of a side of him that was normally frightfully subdued. Quiet afternoons in his office with no sound except the melodic ticking of his clock, the pouring of cups of tea, and the quiet sound of chess pieces being moved across a board, had provided her with a few glimpses at a different sort of man over the past year.<br/>After all, his victories in their matches far outnumbered hers.</p><p>So she didn’t have it in herself to dismiss any paranoias about why it was specifically the four of them out in the field. Especially in the hot zone where fully qualified huntsmen teams had been getting slaughtered for months, even before signs of the creature they’d just killed had begun to emerge.</p><p>Drumming her fingers on the hilt of her trident in thought, she clicked her tongue in frustration and shook her head to dismiss the thoughts for now. She hadn’t even really brought them up with her team yet, not wanting to voice it until she had a more fleshed-out argument, but the others had been able to tell that she had a theory eating away at her. They knew the signs.</p><p>She’d tell them when she believed she had enough of an argument to convince them. Despite their efforts to convince her, she still didn’t seem to understand they’d never doubt her no matter how much or little substance her theories had.</p><p>But she stayed silent, leading the march through the trees with Alice right behind her, Lily in the middle with her rifle out and constantly at the ready, and Angel taking up the rear.<br/>Despite her short stature, she was easily able to keep up, not bothered by fatigue and exhaustion like the others were forced to endure as her aura constantly kept her body primed and refreshed.</p><p>Eyes narrowed, she was off in her own thoughts, her mind lingering on the appearance and details of the mutated girl they had been forced to kill. Running over her appearance again and again and tearing it apart, scrutinising every detail she’d been able to commit to memory, she was growing progressively frustrated at her lack of any sort of explanation.<br/>But it definitely wasn’t a parasite or gradual change, like the throwaway theory Alice had grasped for. The changes had been gruesome, but...delicately and accurately performed, without any of the normal messiness of a typical physical mutation.</p><p>Even the wings had been accurate. Perfectly positioned and proportioned, despite how unnatural they were.</p><p>If they’d been able to get the girl back to Haven she and her mother could have done a proper autopsy to figure it out, and then given the girl a proper burial like she deserved instead of being left on the forest floor for the wolves, since there had been no other option available to them.</p><p>A jangling entered her hearing, and she realised she was absentmindedly fiddling with the tight cuff on her left wrist as she thought, a habit which was dangerous for her to have if she were to ever disable it or detach it. Dropping her hands away from each other, she tried to ignore the temptation to keep fiddling and run her fingers along the smooth metal. </p><p>Each cuff was around the size of a traditional bracer, extending from an inch below her wrist and ending two-thirds down her forearms. The collar around her neck was smaller, but just as tight, and combined with the absorption plates embedded into her spine the setup all worked together to absorb and burn off the aura she radiated at a constant extreme rate. It was a less painful method than the one she had used up until she had switched over, but had taken some getting used to.<br/>At least she was safe to go out into the field on combat missions now, though if Lionheart was truly as desperate as he had seemed to Lily when he had met with her, there was every chance he might have ended up sending her out at some point anyway, scraping the bottom of the barrel. Worth risking sending the walking nuclear bomb out into the trees if it meant getting Haven’s golden child out and on the job as well.</p><p>Rolling her eyes as her mind went in that all too familiar direction, Angel adjusted her arm-mounted blade so that it covered her bracelet and she wouldn’t be able to fidget with it any longer. Hearing the noise, Lily looked over her shoulder at her and shot her a concerned frown, but Angel shook her head to dismiss it.</p><p>It was an old complaint that came from a place of bitterness she knew she had to get over. This was her life now, no matter her feelings on it. We don’t get to choose our destinies. If we did, everyone’s life would be perfect.<br/>And this wasn’t the sort of world that could tolerate anything that was perfect.</p><p>Was that nihilism? Maybe.</p><p>But it also felt like realism to her, so she pointedly ignored the feel of metal on her body, and the fact her body was always warm, and stuck to walking.</p><p><em> ‘On an upside, if I do eventually blow up the forest, I’ll kill a lot of Grimm.’ </em>Angel shrugged to her own thoughts as she kept walking, stepping over a downed log and scowling when she had to readjust the weight of her pack when it slipped.</p><p>Almost tripping in the process, she was prevented from falling onto her face when Lily’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm, easily pulling her back onto her feet properly.</p><p>Nodding to her friend in gratitude, Angel sighed. “Thanks. Sorry.”</p><p>“You’re all good. Lucy almost slipped too.” Lily gave a small grin and a shrug, before both herself and Angel looked ahead to where their team leader was walking. Lily sighed. “She’s exhausted.”</p><p>“We’re all exhausted. But at least the three of us are sleeping.” Nodding, Angel stepped up next to Lily so they were walking side by side as they caught up to the others, but lingering slightly behind so they could talk.</p><p>Lily rested her rifle on her shoulder as she walked. “Alice is keeping an eye on her.”</p><p>Raising an eyebrow, Angel glanced over at her. “Alice isn’t in much better shape either.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know, I know.” Nodding to concede the point, Lily sighed. “We’ll be at Peparra by tomorrow evening. It’s secluded enough we can rest properly for a couple of days.”</p><p>“If we can talk Lucy into that.”</p><p>Sighing again, Lily glanced over at Angel dejectedly. “Which, I will concede, is a hell of an 'if'.”</p><p> </p><p>When Angel went to reply, both of them were snapped back to reality at the sound of Lucy’s trident clicking extended, and Lily immediately cocked her rifle and brought it up ready, Angel’s own reaction only slightly slower as her arm blade snapped into its true length. The pair of them closed the distance between the others and stood ready next to them, and Angel’s eyes widened at the sight of the village visible through the trees.<br/>Lucy glanced over to Alice, who immediately understood and rippled out of sight, before easily scrambling up into the branches of the trees and quickly moving from one treetop to another, thankful for a lack of leaves for her to rustle and instead able to silently and nimbly land on bare branches without any disturbance to reveal her presence. Silently and invisibly making her way into the town, her eyes widened and her breath caught at the bodies that were lining the streets.</p><p>Dozens of them, the horrific final moments of their lives splayed out in full display with massive streams of blood and gore, flesh that had been torn, and bodies that had simply been broken and left to die. What scared her the most was the blood on the stones was still red, and wet.</p><p>This had only been a little while ago. Maybe minutes, maybe an hour or two.<br/>But recently.</p><p>Swallowing a lump in her throat, she quickly made her way back to the others just as silently and dropped in front of them, rippling back to visibility as she did so and biting her bottom lip.</p><p> </p><p>“It was recent. Recent enough there could still be survivors.”</p><p>“Did you see any?” Lucy stepped up, but kept her eyes over Alice’s shoulder and in the direction of the town, her face set. Alice shook her head.</p><p>“No, nothing.” Hesitating, she clenched her axes tightly. “Guys...there are dozens of them. It’s like...it could be the whole village.”</p><p> </p><p>At that, Lucy gestured with her head for them to follow and immediately took off, but kept her spear ready even as she ran, the others right behind her and equally at the ready. Arriving at the village streets, they each looked around in horror at what they were seeing. No fires, none of the normal structural damage of a Grimm attack. It was like death itself had ran through the village and cut the people down where they stood, no matter how quickly they would have tried to run or hide.</p><p>And it was indiscriminate, with children just as brutalised as the adults, with no mercy or favouritism or preference shown at all.</p><p>There weren’t any decent-sized packs of Grimm in the area that Lucy had heard of or seen signs of. In fact this area of the forest had been notably lacking in Grimm for a few weeks now. But it would have taken at least a dozen to clear out a village of this size this efficiently, and they would have needed to strike without any warning or hesitation.</p><p>As Alice and Angel immediately began going from body to body to check for survivors, eventually vanishing into the different buildings and houses in their searching, Lily remained in the center of the small village square with her rifle at the ready, and Lucy was right there with her, constantly turning and gazing around in both horror and a deep dark anger and frustration.</p><p>Grimm didn’t attack like this, but bandits didn’t either. If it was neither of them, then that left one option.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s more of those...things. It has to be.”</p><p> </p><p>Thinning her lips at Lucy’s statement, Lily nodded in agreement, having been silently thinking the same thing.</p><p>“But how many? This had to have been fast, and without distractions. None of the bodies around here look...well...eaten.” She cringed at having to say the last word.</p><p>When a new voice called out from nearby, in a playful and cold tone, Lily and Lucy both immediately spun to face the winged speaker.</p><p>“I didn’t have time for any lunch. I needed to...get the space ready.” Cracking her knuckles by clenching her fists, sliding down to the stones from where she’d been crouching on a nearby roof, Kakra gracefully landed and straightened, her eyes a vibrant red and her arms and face already splattered with blood. “We’re going to need the room.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>“Who are <em> you? </em> ” Lucy smoothly twisted her trident into a ready position, while Lily brought her rifle up at her side. Lucy flicked her eyes over Kakra’s appearance, and her eyes briefly widened and then narrowed. “...you’re one of <em> them. </em> But...you can <em> talk? </em> Could the other one?”</p><p>“My sister, you mean?” Kakra’s face flickered into a snarl, before she shook her head, taking a step out into the village square until Lily’s finger placed onto the trigger of her rifle, and she stopped. “No, no. But it’s not her fault. She was….<em> defective. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>The way Kakra sighed out the last word, with only the sort of frustration you feel when you get home from the shops and discover something you bought was broken in the packaging, had the two girls tense with how dismissive and resigned it was. There was a grief and anger in Kakra’s pulsing red and black eyes, but in her posture and voice there was nothing but playful dismissal and amusement.<br/>While all Lily wanted to do was pull the trigger on her rifle and end this before it began, it was as if a smothering weight was slowly setting over the space around them, pressing in on them on all sides and paralysing them with its pressure just from how Kakra was looking at them and the sheer amount of <em> power </em>that the corrupt woman was releasing. From how Lucy’s grip on her trident was shaking, it was obvious that her team leader was suffering something similar.</p><p>When they didn’t reply, Kakra flicked her eyes up and down them, studying them and going through her mother’s memories to try and find anything about them she might know, before recognising their appearances and an understanding smile came over her face, before it widened in excitement and eagerness, her fangs showing as her lips curled back and her wings flexed, without spreading entirely.</p><p> </p><p>“Team LAVA. Well...I suppose it makes sense now. Unfortunate, but I <em> suppose </em> she had no way of knowing. She may also have shared our mother’s memories, but she hadn’t been blessed with the intelligence to <em> use </em> them.” Kakra chuckled, shaking her head in casual resignation, as if simply hearing that a day’s plans had been washed out by rain and resulted in disappointment. “If she’d known the <em> standard </em> of opponent she had in her sights, she likely would have been more careful. Lucille Mariadove and Lillian Vale. The prides of Haven Academy...alongside the other two, <em> of course </em>. They try their best I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>When Lucy decided she had enough, and the tip of her trident began to glow from the plasma energy building inside of it to fire, Kakra’s eyes flicked to her directly and stared into her soul, piercing through her flesh, and it was as if the pressure around her tripled. It was bordering on suffocating her, to such a degree her legs were close to shaking under the pressure it took just to keep her aim steady and her eyes focused. Not that she could have blinked if she wanted to.</p><p>“You know us?” Somehow Lily was still able to speak, and her eyes narrowed, knowing her aim was perfect for the moment she had to pull the trigger less than a centimetre further back. And that moment was approaching fast, she could feel.</p><p>“My mother does. You killed <em> quite a few </em>of my siblings at Beacon Academy. She wanted to find the four of you quite badly, before the battle came to an end. An unfortunate failure on her part. But...one that I can thankfully remedy for her.” Smirking, Kakra’s eyes finally flashed and began to truly smoulder, a heat growing underneath her skin as her right foot slid slightly back.</p><p>Forced to flinch slightly when Lily fired and the dust round hit her shoulder but didn’t penetrate, simply sticking onto her aura and causing nothing more than a painful bruise that healed in less than a second, Kakra raised her eyebrow in disappointment, glancing down as her aura rippled from the point of impact before looking up into Lily’s narrowing eyes. To her credit, the girl didn’t even look particularly surprised.</p><p>She wasn’t, it had been a fair assumption that the creature in front of them would be as impenetrable and reinforced as the ones they had fought at Beacon. But it was worth the experiment.</p><p>The rippling of aura across their demonic opponents flesh had both the girls widen their eyes.<br/>That wasn’t possible. Only humans had the ability to actively awaken an aura.</p><p>And it had been obvious to all four of them that almost all the mutated aspects of these sorts of monsters were Grimm in origin, and Grimm explicitly lacked souls. They <em> couldn’t </em>generate an aura. None of the humanoid mutants had an aura so far, not even the harpy they had fought earlier.</p><p> </p><p>What <em> was </em>this woman?</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Kakra took in her prey and ran her already salivating tongue along her lips, licking up some remaining blood from her massacre of the village along them, and the taste of blood had her shiver more and a low growl escaped her throat with a rumble that came across as a chuckle, which in many ways it was. When Lily clicked her rifle and spun it back into its twin swords, slipping into her usual ready stance while Lucy did the same, they were both almost thankful that Alice and Angel were on the other side of the village and away from this.</p><p>They were both getting stronger, but they weren’t ready for this.</p><p>It hurt Lucy to admit it, but they’d just get in the way.</p><p> </p><p>Clicking a switch on the side of her trident, the plasma energy that had been building up to fire out of the barrel embedded in the center of the pyramid-shaped prongs instead built up within the blades themselves, adding a vicious electrical charge.</p><p>The thrum of energy building up within reinforced metal broke the tense and hair-thin stillness in the courtyard, and Kakra seemed to vanish from where she was standing into suddenly being a blur of movement, a snap of her wings providing and pushing off with her feet adding enough force for her to close the distance almost before the two girls could blink. Lucy spun her trident and knocked away Kakra’s first vicious swipe with her claws while Lily brought her blade up to impact into Kakra’s other arm and knock it away, before sweeping for the woman’s leg with her other blade.</p><p>Kakra kicked her foot up to dodge the blade before twisting her wings in such a way that she spun in the spot, building up the momentum that a solid kick to Lily sent the girl skidding away even as she crossed her blades to block the blow, the sheer weight behind it enough to stagger her even though Kakra’s foot impacted onto her blades and not her body.</p><p>Grinning in amusement, Kakra swiped for Lucy again, seeming unsurprised when it was again blocked and a swipe from Lucy’s trident swung accurately and fast enough that she barely twisted her head and torso away in time to prevent it cutting along her neck, before catching the trident in her hand and whipping her elbow towards Lucy’s face only for it to bounce off of a layer of aura that extended out with a rapid snap, knocking her off her balance enough in surprise that Lucy’s fist found purchase in driving into her gut and her foot crunched into Kakra’s knee.</p><p>Hopping back when Kakra was forced to let go when she stumbled, Lucy used the momentum to whip her trident around, but Kakra brought her arm up in time to block it just below the blades, the shaft of the trident hitting hard enough it caused the tiniest spark of aura and forced Kakra to whip her wings to rise up slightly into the air, the unusual movement surprising Lucy enough she barely dodged a vicious circular slash of both of Kakra’s taloned hands.</p><p> </p><p>Both girls created distance from one another, Kakra landing gracefully onto the ground before spinning on one heel and knocking away a coordinated series of swipes from Lily, while Lucy stayed backwards and on Kakra’s flank in order to let Lily work. Locked into one on one combat with Lily, Kakra felt herself at a disadvantage, as the huntress was almost impossibly fast and her precision was legendary enough that her mother had made a point to keep it in mind in her memory of the girl.</p><p>A fast and smooth slice from the girl eventually carved down Kakra’s retracted right wing, causing a vicious crackle of Kakra’s aura that had the woman snarl and her offense intensify, grabbing both of Lily’s blades in her hands and giving a massive flap of her wings, enhanced enough with her Semblance that Lucy was sent flying back from the torrent of air pushed behind her and Kakra had enough momentum and power that Lily was sent utterly off balance in her grip in front of her.</p><p>Tossing Lily up slightly, Kakra wrapped a taloned hand around her throat and squeezed tightly, slamming her into the ground before giving a rapid series of deep taloned slices into her gut, the downed girl’s aura crackling brightly and dangerously until her skin shimmered and hardened, causing the next slash of Kakra’s talons to screech painfully along the now impenetrable flesh. Snarling viciously as she looked into Lily’s now crystalline eyes, Kakra merely delivered a vicious kick into her side and sent her sprawling away, before spinning on her heel yet again and snapping her wing with all her might, the torrent of air released powerful enough to send Lily tumbling and tossing along the ground until she crunched into the nearest building, her diamond skin absorbing all the damage from the hit but her aura still crackling from it.</p><p>Kakra took in Lucy just as the girl kicked herself to her feet almost the entire way across the courtyard, and Lucy pushed herself off into a sprint just as Kakra snapped her wings and closed the distance as well, talons impacting into the hard metal of Lucy’s trident in an impact powerful enough the ground rumbled and the windows of nearby buildings shattered. Kakra was impressed with Lucy’s reputation being correct, as the girl was an extremely intelligent fighter, but she was also <em> strong, </em>with enough physical strength to almost push back against Kakra’s own.</p><p>A solid hit from Lucy’s trident ended up impacting into her gut with enough cutting force her aura failed to absorb the blow entirely and the air was pushed from her lungs. While she didn’t <em> need </em> to breathe, it was still destabilising, and black blood dripped from the wound in her gut even as it closed up fast enough it was visible and almost <em> audible </em>, causing Lucy to tense and push again, though Kakra was ready and clashed with her halfway.</p><p>Landing a slicing cut across Lucy’s thigh, her talons scratching deeply along the metal of her armour with enough ferocity the metal screeched as it ripped, Kakra cackled happily as blood began to drip out of the wound and Lucy gasped as her aura sparked. As her leg wobbled from the shock of pain, she lost her balance enough that a vicious and <em> predatory </em>slash of Kakra’s claws tore along the skin of her cheek and jaw and threatened to slit her throat, but she spun away in time, though now with blood dripping down her face from wounds that quickly healed, sealing shut with aura.</p><p>Lily finally joined the fray again, managing to stand to her feet despite the shock of the hurricane-force wind and then the crash into the building, and Kakra was on the disadvantage of fighting on two fronts yet again, forced to dip into her Semblance more and more to add further pressure and power to her blows by powering her momentum with flaps of her wings, and creating almost walls of air around her blind spots to prevent herself from being attacked from those particular angles. Lily was by far the more dangerous opponent, and Kakra found herself on the retreat from the girl on more than one occasion, but Lucy was a <em> dangerously </em>cunning fighter and picked her own moments perfectly.</p><p> </p><p>While Lily was a lethal opponent, Lucy came across as more of a problem, able to coordinate with her teammate far too well for Kakra’s liking, and she dealt with the problem but driving her foot behind herself into Lucy’s gut before pushing her wings as hard as she could and sending Lucy high up into the air to crash onto the ground, but the girl simply drove her trident into the ground on her descent and spun with it, breaking her momentum and landing. Even though she landed on her feet, her aura still crackled from how hard the impact still was.</p><p>Able to toss Lily away again, Kakra suddenly had space to turn and look around herself, eyeing up her two opponents on either side of herself, the two girls also taking a moment of having distance to study the situation and come up with their own ideas.</p><p> </p><p>All of a sudden Kakra was forced to cough out in pain as an unseen sharp blow drove into her stomach, and when she swiped for whatever had hit her, her talons found nothing, hearing only a slight scuffing sound on the stone before another blow went along her ribs and right wing with enough slicing force her aura sparked, and something prehensile and scaled wrapped around her throat, pulling her to the ground. Acting on instinct, she brought her hands up and caught something unseen as it swung for her neck in an effort to simply decapitate her, and she was able to drive her foot into whatever was attacking her and send them sprawling away, the restraint releasing from her neck from the force of the shove.</p><p>Kicking herself up to her feet, Kakra snarled viciously and animalistically when an invisible Alice rippled back into visibility, twirling her axes in her hands and raising the one that was dripping black blood from the gash along Kakra’s side. Narrowing her eyes in fury, Kakra spun to face her other direction knowing what was coming, and brought her powerful wings around to block the powerful dust round that was fired at her from Angel’s arm-mounted rifle, the sheer force of the bullet crackling her aura and sending her skidding back, but her wings succeeded in blocking the shot.</p><p> </p><p>Now surrounded on all four sides as the rest of Team LAVA entered things, she narrowed her eyes as she was all too aware her mind was beginning to fog over, and thoughts of strategy were becoming particular difficult to grasp onto as she fought the instinct to just run wild and tear them apart with nothing but brute strength and hunger. But she had to be careful against these four, they weren’t the Grimm she had been devouring or average Huntsmen. The sheer torrent of black flesh she had consumed while in the Domain Of Darkness was still in her system, sitting unused and uncalled upon, as she had been desiring to fight this battle with her own skills and strengths without relying on her black blood to help her.</p><p>But her anger and hunger had finally grown to outweigh her pride, and the four huntresses watched as black tendrils rose to the surface of Kakra’s skin and the red of her eyes began to pulse so vividly her eyes would have glowed in the dark if it was night. The grey skies of the oncoming late-afternoon storm seemed to darken under the weight of what began to roll off of Kakra as her black blood rose to the surface and began to pump and pulse into every muscle and nerve, the tendrils bulging grotesquely from her flesh and the feathers of her wings darkening to such a degree that they almost weren’t discernible from each other at all, instead her wings appearing to simply be solid black voids.</p><p>When it was called upon, she didn’t hesitate to make her move, and this time Lily wasn’t fast enough to block the blow that smashed into her gut, coughing out her breath as Kakra followed through with the slice by grabbing a vicious and taloned hold of Lily’s torso and <em> twisting, </em> sparking and cracking her aura to such a dangerous degree that the girl <em> whined </em>from the pain, before she shoved Kakra away and was immediately forced to harden herself to diamond again just to stop the wound in her gut from bleeding too much as it closed and healed.</p><p> </p><p>Kakra slashed wildly again, uncaring that Lily was impenetrable, and her talons scratched against diamond skin, doing no harm but crackling Lily’s aura regardless. A series of rapid slices from a recovered Lily’s own blades resulted in a vicious tear along Kakra’s torso that gushed black blood, and the mutated woman gasped in a deep gulp of air in shock from the pain before instantly recovering and kicking off from Lily’s chest, sending the girl sprawling away even as Kakra used the hard surface as purchase in order to flap her wings and close the distance to the other three, who had grouped up and were ready, having been sprinting to close the distance and save their friend as quickly as they could. The screeching of metal and the sparking of aura was loud and unnerving in the small village square, the sounds overpowered only by Kakra’s growing laughter and cackling. </p><p>The three girls worked well together, but the difference in their combat strengths became clear as Alice found herself constantly having to bounce back to allow her aura to stabilise and recover wounds, meanwhile Angel was able to easily take truly savage blows on her aura while her own attacks were clumsy and lacked the same raw physical power that the other three had.</p><p> </p><p>Too many times of Lucy having to flash out barriers of her aura in order to either protect Alice or push Kakra away for the other two to recover, had her reserves starting to run dangerously low, and far too soon she was unable to extrude her aura from her own body any longer, with it only able to stay within her own skin and protect herself. Forced to withdraw slightly to buy her aura time to recover as much as it could, Lucy felt a stab of guilt as Angel took over being the one to take the most hits from Kakra, her unbreakable aura reserves making her the perfect human shield.</p><p>But Alice and Angel had a silent understanding of each other that allowed them to fight just as well together as Lucy and Lily were able to, and while they weren’t as efficiently lethal as Lucy and Lily, Kakra found that Alice’s more draining and disruptive fighting style worked well with how simply impossible to injure Angel was, with Alice constantly able to knock her off balance and keep her pressured enough she wasn’t able to use her wings to their best, or put the right weight behind her attacks.</p><p>It was growing deeply infuriating, and when Kakra eventually saw Lucy’s aura crackle back into existence, her eyes widened in livid bloodlust and she slammed a series of abhorrently vicious and merciless slashes and blows into Alice’s torso before grabbing her by the arm and easily swinging her around to slam her into the ground with her full force behind it before tossing her away, quickly doing the same to Angel as she lost any sense of strategy and her bloodlust finally took over.</p><p>The confrontation with the two of them had taken less than a minute, but as far as all of their minds and bodies felt it could have been hours, and Kakra could hear her black blood pounding in her ears and practically elongating her fangs and talons even further as she let out deep snarls of dark and hungry hatred.</p><p>A sharp and agonising pain entered her back that had her mouth open soundlessly, and she looked down to see a pair of blades piercing out from her chest. Looking over her shoulder, she met the fierce and exhausted eyes of Lily. No matter how much she tore into the Hero Of Haven, the girl seemed determined to keep getting up, despite the fact she had taken by far the most punishment out of the four girls.</p><p> </p><p>Snarling in agony and anger, Kakra pushed away with a snap of her wings, and the blades withdrew from her chest. Coughing out a mouthful of her pitch-black blood, Kakra spat it to the side as she turned and faced her most dangerous and infuriating opponent, and something in her eyes caused Lily to harden her skin again instantly. She never wore her diamond form for too long in combat, it was too heavy and it took too much aura to maintain for any length of time, so she did her best to only use it in desperate moments. But she saw such a hatred and darkness in Kakra’s eyes that she knew she had to likely keep it on for the rest of what was coming.</p><p>Kakra seemed to forget the other three even existed as she smashed into Lily, pushing her to her limit with nothing but mindless and truly brutal movements, no strategy or cunning as she simply did everything she could to break through Lily’s defenses and rip her to shreds. Lily’s defense was legendary in Haven, and she’d deployed it to its best at the tournament both during her duel against Shina but also in the battle after, but Kakra had a level of physical strength and black ferocity that broke her limits.</p><p>Eventually, a sword was sent flying from Lily’s hand and the wrist of her now empty hand was grabbed tightly, and Kakra rained a series of powerful punches into Lily’s stomach as she pushed off with her wings to her full force, sending the two of them flying towards the nearby buildings and smashing through an exterior wall, then an interior wall, and then out the other side of the small shop, all the damage and power of the impacts smashing purely into Lily’s reinforced body. Landing out the other side, Kakra smashed Lily into the ground and dropped to her knees, straddling the girl and grabbing her face in her hand before gripping it tight and crunching it into the stone roads over and over again as Lily’s aura cracked and sparked.</p><p>Eventually, the powerful aura around Lily’s skin cracked, and shattered into dust, her skin losing its diamond defense and returning to normal even as Kakra slammed her head into the road one last time and she lost consciousness. Kakra raised her hands up, about to smash down and deliver the killing blow, but the same prehensile tail wrapped around her wrists and pulled her off of Lily, before swinging her and slamming her into the broken nearby wall of the building she had smashed Lily through.</p><p> </p><p>Alice stepped between Kakra and the bloodied unconscious form of Lily, and she spun her axes in her hands before death-staring Kakra in fierce hatred and rippling out of sight. Stepping into the street and looking around, Kakra kept turning to try and find her invisible opponent before feeling a slash along her back, in the flesh between her wings, and then a second cut to her left thigh, going deep and drawing blood.</p><p>Constantly turning and slashing out with her claws, she couldn’t hit the invisible girl as Alice ducked around and sliced her, whittling away her powerful aura as Lucy and Angel joined them on the street. While Lucy wasn’t able to join the attack out of fear of hitting Alice, Angel ran to her unconscious partner's side and checked her over, before calling over to Lucy for the stronger girl to scoop Lily up in her arms and get her to safety.</p><p>Trusting Alice and Angel to hold Kakra off for a few moments, Lucy carefully picked up Lily’s body before carrying her into one of the nearby buildings, kicking open the weak door and gently lowering Lily to the ground, propping her up against the wall as best as she could before giving her one last terrified but determined look and sprinting back to rejoin the fight.</p><p>Black blood flowing through her pulsing tendrils, Kakra was growing increasingly livid and bestial in her black-flesh fuelled bloodlust as Alice sliced and cut and ducked around her and, eventually, Alice’s luck was bound to run out. As the girl delivered another slice to the back of Kakra’s leg, she felt a taloned hand manage to snatch and grab onto her invisible tail, and she was whipped around and adjusted in the throat for Kakra to manage to find her neck and grab a hold of it tightly, holding it tightly and cutting off her oxygen as Kakra’s other talons pierced deep into the flesh of her upper torso and <em> ripped </em>downwards, the sheer power and depth of the tear shattering the last remains of Alice’s aura and opening up a horrific gash in her torso that spurted blood.</p><p>Kakra sank her fangs into Alice’s neck and almost began to drink in her crazed hunger, but with Alice visible it was possible for Lucy and Angel to finally rejoin the fight, and a true thrust from Lucy’s trident entering one of her wings and going all the way through to then pierce deeply into her back had her release Alice’s neck and angrily toss her aside. Angel once again sprinted over to check on her teammate while Lucy held Kakra busy, and she looked down at the torn apart and bleeding-out girl in horror before dragging her a distance away and grabbing her first aid pouch from her back, treating the deeply bleeding opening in her torso and the dangerously deep bite on her neck as best as she could to stop the bleeding.</p><p> </p><p>With all three of her teammates either incapacitated or busy, Lucy was forced to engage their dangerously feral opponent on her own, and the attrition of the fight was getting to her. Fatigue gripped her body and sweat dripped out of her, her muscles were burning hot and swollen from the exertion, but she kept holding and kept pushing, and she could tell her opponent was tiring as well as Kakra’s blood frenzy began to run dry. Lucy was beginning to lose ground, her aura crackling from just as many hits as she was landing on Kakra, but Kakra had far larger aura reserves than she did and the difference was starting to show.<br/>An unexpected but needed reprieve occurred when Angel finished patching up Alice as best as she could and rejoined the fight, barely exhausted at all as her outrageous aura reserves kept her fully energised and healed. But while she was a fully fuelled fighter, she wasn’t a skilled one, and her best value was as a distraction to allow Lucy to get in as many blows as she could in the openings that she managed to open up.</p><p>When another powerful thrust from her trident entered Kakra’s torso, almost exactly where her previous one had gone through, Lucy twisted as hard as she could to bring her off balance even as Kakra howled in pain and anger, and snapped her wings to send Angel sprawling away. Gripping the shaft of the trident with both her hands, Kakra drove her foot into Lucy’s chest even as she shoved with her wings to get away from the girl, and the trident was ripped from Lucy’s tired grip as she was sent sprawling away.</p><p>Pulling the blades of the trident out of herself, Kakra looked down at the powerful weapon with a hateful glare, before gripping it in both hands on either side of the hilt that allowed it to extend and retract and pulling with all of her strength, the joints of the metal groaning and creaking under the force until eventually they gave way and the weapon was ripped in two. Tossing the pieces aside violently enough they cracked the stonework, Kakra stormed towards the sprawling body of Lucy, whose aura was crackling on its last dregs.</p><p> </p><p>Even as she closed the distance to Lucy, Kakra glanced over to where Angel was slowly and agonisingly pushing herself to her feet once again, and she narrowed her eyes in a mixture of hate and fascination at the sheer amount of reserves and energy that the girl seemed to have. It was constantly radiating off of her in powerful enough waves that Kakra had been feeling the weight of them the entire fight, her own enhanced senses having been able to pick up the weight and pressure of an aura far more powerful than her own.</p><p>In fact it was undeniable to Kakra that Angel’s aura reserves were even more powerful than her mother’s, who was able to draw upon the aura of her entire family of children if she needed.</p><p>Her hatred and anger towards the girl filled her blood and most of her mind. <br/>But...</p><p> </p><p>Brushing away those thoughts as she returned her attention to a struggling Lucy, who pushed herself to her feet and ran the back of her hand along her mouth, spitting out blood even as the wounds in her gums sealed shut, though they sealed far slower than they should have due to her weakened aura reserves. Swaying on her feet, Lucy glanced to the destroyed two halves of her trident on the ground nearby before glancing to where the second of Lily’s blades was on the road nearby from where it had slipped from her grasp upon being knocked out, and she kicked it up into her hand just before Kakra reached her.<br/>But Kakra was relentless, and in far better shape, and even though Lucy landed plenty of powerful and precise cuts into her as Kakra tired just as much as she was, it ended how she expected when a slash from Kakra along her torso, her armour finally giving way and the talons piercing through into her chest, and her aura finally shattered entirely, dusting floating away. A powerful hand grabbed her wrist and squeezed powerfully enough the bone easily snapped, and as she let out a gasp and whimper of pain she was forced to let the blade slip from her fingers.</p><p>Kakra drove her talons into the flesh of Lucy’s chest she could reach through the holes in her armour again, before releasing her wrist and wrapping her now free hand around Lucy’s throat, lifting her up into the air as she hooked her talons into her armour and tore the bent and broken metal from her body, leaving her torso and shoulders exposed and vulnerable.</p><p>Looking up into the eyes of the exposed girl, Kakra let a low growl and snarl leave her throat as her eyes pulsed a powerful and potent red, but Lucy’s gaze didn’t flinch or falter as she simply stared back, her own eyes defiant and unbroken.</p><p>With a simply squeeze from Kakra’s grip, Lucy’s eyes bulged in agony and her mouth dropped open slightly in a silent wheeze. Kakra smirked.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ...crack. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>As Lucy’s body went limp in her grasp, her eyes still open, Kakra simply dropped her to the ground to land splayed out on the stones at her feet before finally looking over to where Angel had dropped to her knees, her eyes wide and her face paling in shock as words and sound escaped her.<br/>Calmly walking over to the girl with a slow predatory stride, Kakra watched in immense satisfaction as Angel’s eyes were simply locked on the broken body of Lucy, whose eyes were trapped open and staring up at the cloudy sky above.</p><p>A single whimper finally managed to escape the young girl’s throat, as Kakra reached her, Angel still not looking at her and barely seeming to notice her.</p><p> </p><p>“...<em> Lucy? </em>...”</p><p> </p><p>The whimper was barely discernible, almost a quiet whine like a sad puppy, and Angel only snapped back to reality when Kakra casually picked her up and wrapped an arm around her throat, cutting off her oxygen. Struggling in Kakra’s grasp as her energy and violence returned to her mind and body, Angel thrashed and struggled as she tried in vain to reach the bracer on her left wrist to disable it and remove it, but as Kakra tightened her grip and she struggled to breathe her hands fell limp as the world fell into darkness.<br/>While her aura didn’t break, and would have sustained her even as she lost oxygen, she still lost consciousness in Kakra’s grasp and went limp. With a final satisfied look around at the carnage, her eyes moving to the two bodies splayed out on the street and knowing another was broken and bloodied somewhere nearby, Kakra smirked and snarled in satisfaction as she scooped Angel up into her arms.</p><p>With a final snap and push of her wings, she rose into the air, and in only a few wingbeats had vanished into the distance.</p><p> </p><p>The village was entirely silent, with no movement or life, nothing but the building frost of the oncoming winter storm slowly sealing up the bleeding wounds of the bodies on the street, turning fresh blood into dried grime.<br/>A gentle breeze went through the streets, tickling Lucy’s fine brown hair as she lay broken on the road, while Alice barely breathed nearby, the bandages on her body soaked through red.</p><p>It could have been a minute later, it could have been hours, but the silence was broken with the crackling of aura and a violent hacking cough from inside one of the dormant buildings as Lily heaved to life, her head pounding and with crusted blood in her hair from a vicious gash on the back of her skull. Opening her eyes and blinking away the agony, she noticed the silence and a cold freeze settled over her instincts.</p><p>Pushing herself to her feet with all of her strength, she stumbled out of the building and looked around. Searching the streets, barely minutes later she came across the final battlefield.</p><p>Noticing Alice was breathing, a wash of relief went through her, but her eyes locked on the still form of Lucy.</p><p> </p><p>Her mouth opening in a silent broken gasp, she dropped to her knees next to her team leader’s body and her lips pulled wide in a wrenching high-pitched groan as her muscles gave out and she slumped, her hands clambering along Lucy’s face and shoulders as she checked her over, but she knew she was gone.</p><p>With shaking hands she opened one of Lucy’s pouches in a panic and searched for the distress beacon they had been given for their mission, grabbing for it in a shattered daze with frozen hands, eventually finding it and barely able to hold it still and steady enough for her to hit the switch, watching as the light began to blink and it came to life for any airships entering the vicinity to pick up on their radars.</p><p>Dropping it to the ground nearby, she looked back to Lucy, and was finally able to let out a sob as the first tears escaped her eyes, and she slumped forward, resting her head on her friend’s still and unmoving chest.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Legacy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The first phase of SPKZ's plan is complete, but as they move into phase two problems arise as Sunny is forced to try and resist a distraction he never thought would be a problem for someone like himself. Meanwhile Kirian makes the next step of his part in things, and gets help from an unexpected source.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>“I hate wearing white.”</p><p> </p><p>At Kirian’s dejected voice, Sunny finished adjusting his new jacket and looked over to where Kirian was staring at his own new clothes in open disdain, his eyes narrowed at the pure white of the Specialists uniform, but not <em> completely </em>against the blue trim. While they would get the opportunity to design their own variations later, to suit their particular styles and tastes, for now the two of them were in possession of the standard uniform for new recruits.</p><p>While Sunny was fine with it, with the uniform being similar to his standard outfit anyway, Kirian was staring at the jacket with a scowl.</p><p>Smirking, Sunny clipped up the final buckles and looked himself over in their dorm mirror, his bags packed on his bed and ready to soon be transferred to his new quarters. The assessment had been as quick and straightforward as they’d been predicting. Ironwood had wanted it badly, and he’d clearly sidled up to the right members of the military panel to get Sunny’s enlistment pushed through.</p><p>And with Kirian’s enlistment being a condition of Sunny agreeing to Ironwood’s wishes, his assessment had been equally as pushed.</p><p> </p><p>Buckling his new sword to his hip and straightening out his belts, Sunny flicked his eyes up and down his appearance. No longer being in the basic academy uniform, he looked older, even to himself, with the Specialists clothes tailored for high-class soldiers instead of teenage trainees.<br/>A large amount of the political and social games in Atlas relied on appearance and presentation, and as much as Sunny hated the practice of it he couldn’t deny he’d grown to appreciate fashion and clothing, especially armour and uniform.</p><p>If he had his way, he’d never wear a three-piece suit again. Once he designed his own uniform and had it made, it would do just fine for everything from combat to formal social gatherings. Meanwhile he could tell that Kirian was going to spend the entire first few days itching to get back into his dark greys and dark blues again.</p><p>Frankly Sunny was just thankful that he didn’t have to put up with Zavraii finding a thousand ways to <em> technically </em>wear the uniform properly but also practically barbarise it in the process simply to make it more casual.</p><p> </p><p>One small glimmer of silver lining to Zav stepping away from the military and returning to Mantle. But a small glimmer indeed.</p><p> </p><p>Waiting patiently as Kirian got dressed without any further grumbling, holstering his new large pistols onto his hips, Sunny gave him a patient and approving nod when he was done, smirking again when Kirian fixed up his hair in the mirror. Kirian definitely cleaned up well when he bothered to, and was easily the most aesthetically handsome member of the team, but...he wasn’t exactly the approachable type.<br/>His large rotating mechanism had been taken apart and the entire concept rebuilt from the ground up, with the current iteration being two hand-cannons that he could hold in each hand initially, but then were able to click together and extend into a true rifle. Kirian’s flawless memory and analytical skills through his Semblance made him an almost unmatched marksman, and he had decided to eschew the more explosive ordinance setups in exchange for increasing the firepower of his long-range loadouts.</p><p>It wasn’t much of a loss, since Sunny had large-scale destruction handled purely on his own.</p><p>The four of them had always complimented each other perfectly. They’d trained to.<br/>But now, without Petyr to handle battlefield control and support, the balance was off, and would never be the same again. Adjustments had to be made.<br/>And with Zav having all but completely quit the program, and both Kirian and Sunny being assigned to different sectors of the military, it was unlikely they would fight as a team ever again.<br/>They were each on their own now.</p><p> </p><p>Despite the fact they were both wearing the same uniform, Sunny and Kirian were both all too aware of the distance that was going to be between them now, as each of them went into service. But they’d expected it. It was all part of the plan, it was required.<br/>There had only been one surprise so far.</p><p>And that was Winter.</p><p>Letting out a curious sigh, Sunny frowned as he mulled over it.</p><p> </p><p>Just as he had expected, Winter had given her professional approval for his enlistment to the Special Operatives Unit, and he was expecting her to go through with her own plan and have him assigned to the SDC. It hadn’t completely thrown off their goals, but it had required a bit of adjusting. Of his own accord and concern, Zav had taken it as a priority to look for and find any clues about whatever it is that clearly had Winter on edge and concerned for her sister, but that was the last thing they’d heard from him as neither Sunny or Kirian were still hearing from their friend very often, the boy engrossed in his work to a dangerously obsessive degree.</p><p>Zav had already taken all of his stuff from the dorm weeks ago, and they’d already sent all of Petyr’s belongings to be returned to his family back in Mistral, leaving only two used bunks, closets, and desks. But now they were packed as well, both men managing to fit all their belongings and memories into one rucksack each. The room had been cleaned, all the bedding and linens had been returned to the laundries to be stored until they were next needed, everything had been straightened out.</p><p>As soon as the two men left the room with their bags over their shoulders, it would be as if it hadn’t been occupied for the past two years at all.</p><p> </p><p>Both of them waited patiently until there was a firm but polite knock on their door, and Sunny answered, straightening and giving a salute to Winter as she arrived to collect them. The woman was dressed immaculately, not even a hair out of place, with her hands behind her back and her posture tall and rigid in a way that always radiated power and authority, as if everything around her was expected to do as she ordered.<br/>Considering just who she was and what she was capable of, it wasn’t a very far-fetched expectation.</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in greeting, she glanced between the two men and flicked her eyes up and down, scrutinising their uniforms and searching their eyes for any hesitation or doubts, anything she’d need to press or discourage, but she found nothing and it satisfied her.</p><p>“Specialists, it’s time for you to be shown to your new quarters. I’ve volunteered to give your induction, but you will both be meeting your commanding officers, and I expect you both to make excellent first impressions.” Her eyes hardened as she clipped off each word with a firm order, and the two men straightened up in response and nodded.</p><p>Turning without another word, Winter began to make her way down the corridor, and Sunny and Kirian gave each other one last apprehensive glance before following, grabbing their bags and leaving their dorm for the last time, potentially to never see it again.</p><p>As of the moment Sunny closed the door behind them, Team SPKZ was disbanded as a team.</p><p>The lock clicked as he closed it.</p><p> </p><p>Both of them caught up to Winter, but stayed a pace behind her. While she didn’t say a word while they were still in the academy grounds, once they crossed over into the primary military complex she began to speak in the same commanding and clear voice.</p><p>“The Special Operatives Unit is reserved only for Huntsmen who have shown exceptional potential and skill, completely inaccessible for any soldier without an unlocked aura or Semblance. Each of your fellow Specialists have years of experience in unique missions and tasks with their unique skills. Make use of that experience. Pay attention to everything around you, learn from them.”</p><p>The automatic doors leading into the main complex opened with a smooth whoosh as they stepped in, entering the warm heating that perfectly kept out the standard Atlas cold but wasn’t hot enough to cause any sweat or fatigue. While the three of them wouldn’t have had any trouble anyway, due to their auras, only an incredibly small percentage of the population had unlocked auras, with almost all members of the military not having them, both those in administration and in combat roles.<br/>The primary military complex was massive, far larger than the campus, and was both multiple stories high but also went levels underground, and the walk from the standard administration department through to the Specialist Facility was an almost entirely silent fifteen minute walk through winding hallways. Reaching a locked-off elevator, Winter stopped in front of it and turned to the two of them, before taking her scroll from her pocket.</p><p> </p><p>“Present your scrolls, for this.”</p><p> </p><p>Sunny and Kirian both obediently complied, pulling their scrolls out and holding them out, and Winter held her scroll over each of theirs in turn, a small beeping sound coming each time as she officially upgraded their licenses and clearance grades.</p><p>Nodding in satisfaction when she was done, Winter turned back to the lift and held her scroll over the scanner, the lift doors opening, and she stepped inside.</p><p>Both men looked down at their new Specialist identifications, and while Kirian didn’t react in any particular way, immediately holding his own scroll over the scanner and then stepping inside to join Winter, Sunny allowed a small smile of pride to touch the corner of his lips before joining them. Catching his smile, Winter waited until the elevator doors were closed before acknowledging it and her eyes warmed the slightest degree.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re both going to be welcome additions to the unit, Whistlewind, Phase.”</p><p>Kirian gave a nod of gratitude for the praise. “Thank you, ma’am.”</p><p>“The trust and authority you have been given will become evident over the coming weeks as you find your places here. It may be...daunting, given recent world events, but you would not have been chosen if you weren’t expected to be able to excel.”</p><p> </p><p>Neither of them were sure how to respond, so simply waited quietly as the elevator rose up quite a few levels before the doors opened, revealing crisp and clean halls. Leading them through the corridors of the Specialist department, Winter gave them a quick and succinct tour, pointing out the different briefing rooms, the private armory and workshop even though Specialists had access to the best the R&amp;D Department could provide, and she made sure to provide information on where to find the private training rooms, giving a pointed look to Sunny as she mentioned how the training rooms were designed to handle Specialists training at their strongest, with no need to restrain themselves.</p><p>A few other Specialists were around the different rooms, and they were introduced to each of them as they met them, but the Specialist unit was rather small and tight knit. While most Huntsmen from the Academy ended up in the military, only the best were chosen to even be given a chance in the unit, so it kept the numbers small. Due to the small and tight-knit nature of the group, each of them had heard about Sunny and Kirian beforehand, and gave a mixture of receptions to the pair.<br/>It was obvious that the main reaction to their being promoted was apprehension about their age, but Sunny was from a long line of Specialists in his family. Plenty of the older and more experienced Specialists had worked with his father at some point, and they in particular gave warmer greetings to the two of them and congratulations.</p><p>Eventually they reached the accommodations, and the men were relieved that they each got their own small room. Dropping off his bag to be unpacked and sorted later, Sunny gave a quick glance around the neat but sparse room, not so different from the dorm except for a few extra amenities such as a wall monitor, and organised to house only one person.</p><p>In the past weeks he had gotten away with staying and sleeping at his family home instead of the dorms, but now he would be living in his quarters full time unless he was given leave. The idea didn’t bother him too much, he had found that he preferred more private and spartan quarters over the plusher estate. It just suited him better.</p><p>Winter was waiting for him patiently, Kirian already with her, so he quickly stepped back out of his new quarters and closed the door behind himself, the digital lock making sure only he and his superiors could get inside, meaning almost no chance of intrusions, which was an immense relief given his love of quiet privacy.</p><p>Giving him another quick scrutinising glance, Winter resisted the impulse to hum in thought, before leading them through more halls and rooms.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually the tour was finished, and she led them back towards their quarters. As they got closer, her posture grew slightly more rigid, and Sunny noticed her eyes slightly narrowed as she thought over something. When they were back outside Sunny and Kirian’s rooms, thankfully next to each other, Winter looked between the two of them with the same narrowed eyes she’d had for quite a few minutes.</p><p>“Whistlewind, Phase, a word in private?”</p><p>Blinking and raising his eyebrows, Sunny nodded and opened the door to his new quarters. “Of course, ma’am.”</p><p>The three of them stepped inside, Kirian and Sunny waiting patiently and quietly as Winter closed the door behind her and guaranteed they were in private. Turning to the two men, she folded her hands behind her back and fixed them both with an intense stare, tearing into their souls as her eyes pierced into them.</p><p>She thinned her lips, and her voice came out suspicious but firm.</p><p>“I’m not sure what your overall intention is between the three of you, as I’m including Mister Illyas in this. You would not be the first Specialists to get into the program with some private goal in mind, not even the first during my time as commander, so I know what to look for.” While she knew that Kirian’s face would be cold and impossible to read, she instead focused on Sunny, caution in her gaze. “Ambition and purpose can be what make the members of this elite unit truly exceptional in their roles, but do <em> not </em>let those private goals become distractions.”</p><p>With her eyes piercing into him, Sunny met her stare confidently and firmly, reinforced steel inside of his eyes as he resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. She stared at him long enough that it was clear she was seeing if he would crack, and when he didn’t she seemed satisfied in something and her thinned lips relaxed slightly. Her eyes started going back and forth between the two of them again.</p><p>“You were both at Beacon, and given first-hand experience of the sort of dangers threatening the world in this new time. Your commitment in the battle, and the aftermath, more than proved you’re both patriots. In your own ways.” Her eyes went to Kirian at that, and the boy met her stare impassively, which she expected. But privately he was resisting the urge to either roll his eyes or smirk. She continued. “So I trust you’ll keep the best interests of Atlas as the priority of your service. And I <em> also trust </em>that whatever it is you’re aiming for is in the best interests of Atlas as well. You’re not students, not anymore. When you make mistakes or cause mischief or any such nonsense now, people could die. Either civilians, or even your comrades. You both already know what that can be like.”</p><p>At the final part, her eyes did soften slightly, but there was still a stern pressure in her voice and her expression, making her point and her warning explicitly clear. The Specialists were scrutinised constantly, kept an intense eye on due to being directly under the command of General Ironwood and his most loyal and experienced subordinates. It would be hard to cause any ripples.<br/>And she was right. The stakes were monumental now.</p><p>Both Sunny and Kirian nodded, Sunny letting out a slow and steady breath as he made sure to convey his understanding with his eyes as much as possible. They both straightened.</p><p>“Understood, ma’am.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.”</p><p>Holding their gaze a few moments longer, Winter nodded in satisfaction before the caution left her eyes and she returned to her cold and disciplined demeanour, drumming her fingers behind her back.</p><p>“Specialist Phase, Major Omarian expects you at the Research &amp; Development Department for your introduction at fourteen-hundred hours. Specialist Whistlewind, you are to report to your first briefing at sixteen-hundred hours with Sergeant-Specialist Lance in briefing room four. For now however, dismissed, get unpacked and settled in.”</p><p> </p><p>The two men immediately straightened up tall and saluted, and Winter nodded back before briskly turning and leaving, the door sliding closed behind her and leaving the two men in private. The two of them immediately relaxed, Kirian sitting on the edge of the small desk in the room while Sunny sat on the edge of his new bed, which he found to be rather comfortable.</p><p>Pinching the bridge of his nose, Kirian chuckled. “Anything like what you expected?”</p><p>“I had a general idea.” Sunny shrugged, stretching his arms above his head. “But...well, that at the end…”</p><p>“She’s definitely…” Sucking in a breath in concern, Kirian templed his fingers in front of his mouth and tapped them together in thought. “You’re better at this than I am, how dangerous is she?”</p><p>“Lethal. But…” Frowning, Sunny mulled over it, thinking over all of his interactions with Winter whether in public, or more recently the ones in private, and something felt off to him as he tilted his head. “I’m not entirely sure she’d stop us.”</p><p>“I hope so.”</p><p> </p><p>The two of them sat in thought for another half an hour, throwing the occasional question or comment at each other as they quietly brainstormed. But, they were in. Kirian’s next part in things was easier, but once it was done...the real work began.<br/>And it was going to take months.<br/>Maybe even years.</p><p> </p><p>Assuming everything went smoothly.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>That evening, as the sun began to set, the three surviving members of Team SPKZ were sitting around Zav’s small dining table down in Mantle. While Zav was wearing the sort of casualwear he was back to always being allowed to wear, both Sunny and Kirian were still dressed in their absolute best.<br/>But not because they simply hadn’t bothered to change back into civilian clothes. Instead it was because they both had a party to attend.</p><p> </p><p>As the two newest members of the spec-ops, it was expected for them to attend the next major social party that had extended invitations to important members of the military. Most of the Specialists tended to go to them, which was where Sunny had met most of them initially, but instead of attending purely as the Whistlewind scion he would now attend as an Atlesian Specialist himself, marking him as one of the best students to go through the Academy. The most recent recruit to the Specialists before himself and Kirian was Marrow Amin of the Ace-Ops, who had only been in the year above them at the Academy, and both Sunny and Kirian found it a slight relief to have a familiar face, even though Marrow wouldn’t really be able to talk much.</p><p>While Sunny was fine with attending another party, it simply being par for the course at this point for him, Kirian was less than pleased. The other man disliked socialising, or even simply being around groups of people in general, to such a point he’d made Petyr look like an extrovert by comparison. They both knew Kirian would rather spend the evening and night tinkering with the computers in the R&amp;D department, which he hadn’t had a chance to do yet, but Major Omarian had made it <em> very </em> clear he had to attend at least the <em> first </em>social party, even if he wouldn’t attend any of the next ones.</p><p>Kirian’s displeasure at where the two of them had to head in an hour had him finishing up his third glass of painfully-cheap whiskey, which had both Sunny and Zav watching him in amusement.</p><p> </p><p>Putting the now empty glass back on the table, Kirian noticed he was being stared at, and he raised an eyebrow. “What?”<br/>“It’s one night. I think you can manage <em> one night, </em> man.” Zav smirked, taking a sip of his own drink, his feet resting up on the table.<br/>“I hate those people.”<br/>“We <em> all </em> hate them.” Zav shrugged, raising his eyebrows. “But, it’s how things are done. You’ll survive.”<br/>“I don’t mind them so much.” Sunny smirked over the rim of his glass at the flash of mock agitation that went through Zav’s eyes, both of them knowing he didn’t really mean it.<br/>So Zav didn’t feel bad to throw back. “That’s because you’re one of them.”</p><p>Nodding and shrugging to concede the point, Sunny put his glass back down on the table and tapped the side of it casually in thought. It wasn’t <em> incorrect </em> to lump him in with the rest of the Atlesian elite. But it didn’t feel particularly fair, so he was always relieved to know Zav didn’t mean it whenever he made those jokes. Not these days, anyway.<br/>The Whistlewind family were old money and military prestige, not industrialists or corporate giants, so even though they mingled in the same circles as the likes of Jacques Schnee and other parasites...they weren’t believed to be part of the problem.</p><p>But whenever Sunny mentioned <em> that </em> particular defense, Zav would shoot him down by saying that the Whistlewind family had never done anything to try and be part of the solution either, despite their influence. And as far as Zav believed, if you ‘weren’t a part of the problem’, but also not bothering to be part of the solution, <em> you were part of the problem. </em></p><p>It was an old argument between the two boys. Meanwhile Kirian came from the world in-between the two extremes.<br/>His family were financially comfortable enough to live up in Atlas, they lived in the poorest district, and their medical clinic itself was down in Mantle. Which was how Kirian and Zav met each other in their early teens instead of not meeting until joining Atlas, meanwhile <em> Petyr </em> had been a complete outsider.<br/>Born in Haven on the other side of the planet, his Semblance had made him perfect for Atlas, and so he’d waved goodbye to his parents and made the trip, arriving at Atlas Academy with two bags and wide eyes.</p><p>Being partnered with Petyr had made Sunny apprehensive at first, when he’d first met the boy, but...it had been refreshing. Petyr had no experience or knowledge of the intricate and suffocating red threads that made up the Atlesian social and political scene, so he hadn’t had any biases in how he approached <em> anybody. </em> He had treated Zavraii and Sunny the exact same way.<br/>And if it hadn’t been for that, there would have never been a bridge between the two, and Sunny and Zav would have never seen eye to eye.</p><p> </p><p>Now Petyr was gone, and without their tether they were each drifting back to the worlds they knew, with Zav returning to Mantle and more loyal to the Happy Huntresses than he was to Atlas above up, Sunny spending his nights at parties in clothes worth more than a house in the slums, and Kirian keeping to himself as much as possible, a ghost with his own agenda.</p><p>But they had the plans they <em> needed </em>to complete, if there was going to be any hope of saving Atlas. And none of them could do it without the others. </p><p>Petyr’s inner hope had come to fruition;</p><p>Bound by one cause, instead of fractions and factions<br/>Save the people, no matter who they are or where they’re from.</p><p>Sunny glanced around at his two remaining friends, his eyes lingering on the empty chair that Petyr had slumped in on many occasions. If he tried, he could almost imagine the ghost of his friend sitting there with them still. Hopefully looking at them with either pride, or resolve.<br/>Looking across the table, he caught Kirian looking back at him, and he sighed, what he was feeling and thinking about clear on his face and in his eyes. Seeing it, the other two boys sank into a similar silence, their playful bickering and snarking fading into silence.</p><p>Clearing his throat to get rid of a lump in his gut, Zav gently closed the file he was scribbling in and placed his hands on top of it.<br/>“Any word from his family?”<br/>“Not yet. It’ll be months.” Kirian shook his head, tracing a finger around the rim of his empty glass. “I know that his stuff has been delivered, along with our own letters that we sent with it, but no reply. Not yet.”<br/>“Right. That makes sense.” Nodding, Zav let out a shaky breath and opened the file again, looking down at the papers inside. More news report transcripts and newspaper clippings.<br/>“Why even be so sure they’d want to say anything to us, anyway?” Sunny sipped his gradually emptying glass, his eyes deadened. “They probably think that <em> we </em>got their son killed.”</p><p>While Zav’s eyes flicked to him in a mixture of a hurt glare but also heavy concern, Kirian simply raised his eyebrows and half-shrugged, partially in agreement.</p><p>“True. Between Ironwood’s official letter, and our own personal ones, they honestly might not think there’s anything else to say on the matter. Especially considering they can’t even bury him.”</p><p>“I think that’s the part I hate the most.” Sunny grunted, finishing up his glass and placing it down, pushing it away from himself slightly to resist the urge to refill it.</p><p>“It is what it is. Some things we can’t change.” His face casual and blank, Kirian spun his empty glass in slow circles on the tabletop, only to stop when Zav flicked the file closed again, more aggressively this time, and glared at the two of them.</p><p>“Alright you two, enough. Just...enough.”</p><p> </p><p>Shrugging coldly, Kirian almost went to pour himself another glass, but then stopped himself, knowing he needed to be sober for the night. Besides, Sunny had mentioned that there tended to be ludicrous amounts of alcohol at the parties anyway, and he’d find it more satisfying to drink from a rich person’s supply instead of draining that of his rather poor friend.</p><p>Across the table he could tell that Sunny was thinking the same thing but also fighting the urge, having only had the one glass which he’d been sipping absentmindedly.</p><p>It was the first time the two of them had been over ever since they’d all returned to the city from Beacon, having been fine giving Zav his complete privacy up until their day had nearly been over and they’d needed to gather to not just talk about everything that had happened, but also just sit together again while they had the rare opportunity, with both Sunny and Kirian going to be stuck in Atlas for the foreseeable future.</p><p> </p><p>As silence began to stretch on, Zav eventually going back to his work while Kirian grabbed a folder of his own to browse through, Sunny was instead mulling over his first meeting with Specialist Lance, but for the most part had stored it away for later. He’d have plenty of opportunities to speak to the man at later times, including tonight, but it was always best to have as good a picture of your superiors as possible.</p><p>They weren’t kids anymore. While they might have been top-tier at the academy, they were now going to be operating in a world filled with people smarter than they were.</p><p>They had to plan as many moves ahead as they could, now. And each one had to be planned <em> immaculately. </em> No more room for even the slightest mistakes or lapses in judgement.</p><p>And that included tonight.</p><p>“Anyone on the list for tonight that particularly stands out to you, Zav?”</p><p> </p><p>Looking up from his file at the question, Zav hummed in thought as he reached behind himself to a small counter nearby and snatched up another folder, straightening back up and flicking it open on the table, glancing down at the guest list for the party that he’d compiled and clicking his tongue as he flicked through each name.</p><p>“Well, you’re going to have to mingle with the military. Normally you could avoid that, but with your new positions…”<br/>“Who’s going to be there?”<br/>“Well, Ironwood obviously, but you don’t really need to bother talk with him, he’s got everything he wants from you both for now. Some of the other Specialists are going to be there. Your commander Arthur Lance, Winter Schnee, the Ace Ops, Jasper Citrine, Violet Merrin, a few others.”<br/>"Wait, Winter is going to be there?” Sunny raised his eyebrows and sat up. The idea of Winter going to the same party as her father was unbelievable to him, so he wasn’t surprised when Zav snorted.</p><p>“She’s been <em> invited </em>but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”</p><p>“That...reminds me...” Sunny paused, and Zav already knew what he was going to ask about, reaching for another folder.</p><p>“I’ve been doing my best, but her rescinding the family title caused such a scandal that the gossip from the time makes it nearly impossible to get the true details of what might have happened. Dozens of ‘inside sources’ wanting their five minutes of fame came out reporting all sorts of bullshit, plenty of it contradicting each other. It’s actually rather frustrating.” Sighing, Zav flicked open the folder marked <em> ‘Possible Schnee Dangers’ </em> and pulled out some clipped papers</p><p>Taking them when they were offered, Sunny sat back and began to look through them. He could remember clearly when the Schnee Heiress had renounced her claim to the family title, it had been all that the Atlesian elite had whispered about for weeks, much to the fury of Jacques. But it was some years ago, and he’d not yet been old enough for his parents to include him in those sorts of conversations.</p><p>Looking up at Zav again even as he flicked through the papers, handing each one he finished straight on to Kirian for the other man to read, Sunny thinned his lips in concern.</p><p>“As for Weiss?”<br/>“Ha. Yeah, about that…” Zav snorted in frustration and slumped his shoulders. “After Winter, the Schnee family clammed up pretty tight. Family staff were practically culled to get rid of leaks, Jacques tightened his grip on the board of directors...I’ve got no idea what might be threatening her...apart from her own father.”<br/>“...I’ll keep an eye on her.” Nodding to himself, Sunny passed the rest of the file to Kirian and rubbed his tired and stressed eyes. “Starting tomorrow it’ll be my actual job.”<br/>“Does she know?” Finishing his scanning of the papers quickly, Kirian flicked the folder closed and handed it back to Zav, before raising his eyebrows to Sunny.<br/>“No, I don’t think so. Not unless Winter has told her, which I doubt she has. And even Jacques only knows that a military liaison is going to be assigned. He doesn’t know who yet either.”</p><p>Snorting in amusement, Zav smirked. “I see absolutely no way this will go terribly wrong.”<br/>“I do.” Kirian’s expression and voice were far more serious than Zav’s, and he fixed Sunny with a stern look. “Just remember that it’s not the priority.”<br/>“I know, Kirian. That doesn’t mean I’m going to neglect it.”<br/>“You could put her in even more danger, if you make any mistakes.”</p><p>Sunny didn’t give him the satisfaction of an opening to explain just what mistakes he was suggesting, instead he gave into the urge and poured himself another drink, though this one was far smaller, and he drank it quickly before glancing up at the clock and raising his eyebrows.<br/><br/>“Speaking of mistakes, we need to get going. It wouldn’t do for us to be late for our first time representing the military at a formal event.”</p><p>“I can think of worse things.” Grumbling, Kirian stood and grabbed his Specialist jacket, pulling it on over his shoulders and buckling it up as Sunny did the same, while Zav grinned up at them in amusement.</p><p>“Do have a wonderful night, you two.” He paused, the smile flickering and the anxiety behind it showing. He glanced down at the folder with all the intel he’d gathered on just what sort of adversaries were going to be at the party...were going to be scrutinising his friends for any vulnerability. “...be careful.”</p><p>While <em> Sunny </em>merely gave a small and prepared smile, unsure what to say in order to reassure Zav that the two of them were going to do everything right, even more unsure how to express that he hoped to see him again soon despite how busy they were about to be….Kirian instead simply grumbled in dread for the coming hours, as he gave a small sarcastic salute and made his way out.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The sky was dark by the time the pair had made the trip back up to Atlas and then through the streets to the Milvana Estate, thankfully chauffeured by Sunny’s driver. After stepping out of one of the Whistlewind family’s <em> nicer </em> cars, the pair paused and looked up at the large estate in front of them, with the Milvana family being <em> far </em>wealthier and more influential than the Whistlewinds, and they glanced at each other.</p><p>Sunny gave Kirian a resigned but prepared smile, small and only touching one corner of his mouth, meanwhile Kirian straightened his shoulders with his hands folded behind his back. To observers he looked every part the perfect image of a military officer, but Sunny knew him well enough to be able to see the miniscule signs of tension that Kirian wasn’t able to hide perfectly.</p><p>“Alright, remember to smile and nod. You don’t need to know specifically who, just follow my lead unless you’re spoken to, in which case you’re on your own.”</p><p>“I have done this before, Sunny.” Kirian gave him a raised eyebrow, before a small scowl appeared when he realised he was just being teased. “But don’t be surprised if I let you do most of the talking.”</p><p>Grinning and glancing down at the ground for a moment, Sunny nodded. “I didn’t expect anything else.”</p><p> </p><p>Heading towards the doors at a stroll, not wanting to appear overeager but also not wishing to come across as hesitant or reluctant, they didn’t say anything else to each other, merely glancing around at the house casually as they entered, Sunny making sure to give a polite nod to the doorman, who recognised their uniform and gave a polite half-bow, gesturing for them to enter before they’d even properly reached him.<br/>Thanking him politely as he passed, Sunny noticed as the man’s eyes flicked to the Beacon Veterancy medals that were a part of both of their uniforms. While they thankfully would never have to wear them while on-duty, they were forced to when attending nights like this. Sunny was used to it, and had grown numb to the exposure, meanwhile Kirian had detached himself as coldly as possible from it.</p><p>So Sunny just hoped that no-one brought it up with the other man, because Kirian had a tendency of being...blunt, when he’d severed his feelings from something. And even all these months later the battle was a delicate subject for some Atlesian families.<br/>It had been a <em> massive </em>embarrassment to Atlas, with the hack of the Knights and Paladins, the loss of plenty of students who had travelled for the tournament, and the shortcomings of the military that had been present.</p><p>Thankfully Sunny knew how to navigate those conversations, and the sympathy points SPKZ had earned due to the loss of Petyr had helped. But Kirian was a different sort of social instrument.</p><p> </p><p>Entering the large social hall, a large and elegantly furnished and decorated ballroom, eyes throughout the rather busy room immediately flicked to them. While not everyone acknowledged their entrance, enough people did that Sunny knew that by the time the two men had greeted their hosts, the entire room would be aware and plenty of people would be eyeing them like hawks.<br/>Or more like vultures.</p><p>Winding their way through the room, giving small smiles and nods to all the right people, Sunny led the way towards where he saw their hosts mingling, and made sure their greetings were quick for Kirian’s sake. Short and sweet, he and Gharus Milvana smiled politely at each other while ignoring the undercurrent of disdain due to the bad blood between Gharus and Sunny’s father, it was simple and diplomatic.</p><p>Then Gharus turned his attention to Kirian, who hadn’t spoken beyond giving a simple thank you for the invitation.</p><p>“Specialist Phase, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Yourself and the other surviving member of your school team are certainly rather reclusive.” Gharus chuckled, swapping his glass of champagne to his left hand so he could offer his right.</p><p>Glancing down at his hand unmoving for a split-second, Kirian took it in a firm handshake, and he nodded. “It was time to finally reemerge, I suppose. But he and I both grieve in our own particular ways.”</p><p>“Ah, I can certainly imagine.” Gharus nodded, sympathy coming across his face as he released Kirian’s hand and nursed his glass. “Congratulations on your appointment, a truly admirable way of honoring your comrade. Continuing the good fight.”</p><p>“A nice sentiment, but Petyr loathed violence. Joining the military was never something he wanted for either of us.” As Kirian answered, Sunny fought the urge to wince. “But the acquisition of peace has a history of requiring the compromising of those who wish to achieve it.”</p><p> </p><p>While Gharus looked at him wordlessly for a few moments, some of the people nearby who had been eavesdropping on the conversation also so unsure how to process what he’d said that they’d ceased being subtle in their listening-in, Kirian took the lack of response as permission to reach to the nearby table and take a glass of champagne, sipping it casually.</p><p>Attempting to salvage the situation, Gharus cleared his throat and gave a nod. “That’s true I suppose. The determination to do what must be done demands a certain kind of strength that many lack. The Special Operatives unit are certainly the right place for those of your evident conviction. They’re lucky to have you.”</p><p>“Thank you sir. The General has made many questionable decisions in the past year, but his support in our appointment was most welcome.” Giving another polite nod, Kirian stepped away and half-turned on his heel. “Enjoy the party, sir.”</p><p> </p><p>As Kirian casually strolled away through the room and vanished from sight, Sunny turned back to Gharus with as composed an expression on his face as he could manage, just in time for Gharus to hum in thought and raise an eyebrow. There was a degree of familiarity between the two, so he was more willing to relax around Sunny, and he clicked his tongue.</p><p>“Your teammate certainly isn’t wrong about the questionability of the General’s decisions, Specialist Whistlewind. But we shall see if they bear fruit.”</p><p>“I’m certain they will, sir. But what fruit it is he has planted, is something known only to him and him alone.” Nodding, Sunny poured a glass of whiskey from one of the many bottles on the large table, and took a sip, sighing in satisfaction, raising the glass slightly in thanks. “Excellent. But yes, the General is a man of more than considerable talent.”</p><p>“Of course, his decision to trust you with your position is a reminder of one of the many reasons we trust him in his position.” Gharus was quick to reassure Sunny, but there was still a hesitation in his eyes, and he chose his next words carefully. “The Whistlewind family have been true patriots of the Atlesian Military stretching further back than James’ appointment. It’s a comfort to know that the pillar of Whistlewind strength persists even as other pillars of Atlesian military strength waiver.”</p><p>Able to stop his eyes from narrowing slightly, both in slight irritation but also satisfaction, Sunny was only able to nod in thanks for the strangely delivered compliment, and he took another sip of his drink before casting his eyes over the party.</p><p>“I suspect Specialist Phase has left to greet our superior officer, and I must do the same. Enjoy your party, Mister Milvana.”</p><p>“You as well, Specialist Whistlewind. And congratulations again.”</p><p> </p><p>Stepping away from Gharus and his small cluster of friends, Sunny politely yet briskly made his way across to the other side of the room, unsurprised to find Kirian finishing his glass of champagne at the table on the exact opposite side of the room. Raising an eyebrow as he stepped up next to his friend and fixing him with an exasperated look, Sunny’s eye twitched when Kirian simply shrugged.</p><p>“It worked, didn’t it?”</p><p>“Dammit Kirian, would it kill you to keep your mouth shut for once?”</p><p>“I didn’t even say anything bad, no need to scold me.” Giving a small smirk, Kirian took a sip of a fresh glass.</p><p> </p><p>Growling in frustration, it turned into a laugh towards the end of the breath, and Sunny glanced down at his own glass before taking a sip.<br/>“I suppose not. But your delivery always leaves a lot to be desired. Shit, dude.”</p><p>Shrugging again, his face impassive and relaxed, Kirian gulped down the rest of his champagne before matching Sunny by snatching up a clean empty glass and pouring himself some whiskey instead, though unlike Sunny’s preference he also added ice.</p><p>“I’m not going to play the Game, Sunny. Not their way.”</p><p>“If we don’t, we’ll lose.”</p><p>“Tell me that I didn’t just help our cause.” Raising his eyebrows, Kirian gave Sunny a challenging look. “Delivery or not, I helped.”</p><p> </p><p>Hesitating for a moment before sighing in frustration, Sunny rolled his eyes to concede the point, before sucking a breath in through his teeth and glancing around the room, picking out important people with his eyes and listing them in his head according to priority. Tapping his fingers on the side of his glass, he thinned his lips.</p><p>“Well, prepare for those conversations to be the next several hours. But for now...let’s just mingle a bit.”</p><p>“I know that sounds like your version of a ‘rest break’, but that also just sounds like the same sort of work to me.” Sighing in resignation, Kirian joined Sunny as his friend began to walk away, heading in a direction Kirian didn’t care enough to check. “Do you really find this fun?”</p><p>“Nope. Just used to it. I’d rather be either reading on my balcony, or trying out the new training facilities.”</p><p>“If we’re both sober by the end of the night-”</p><p>“Unlikely.” Sunny punctuated his interruption by taking a sip of his drink, and Kirian sighed in agreement before continuing.</p><p>“<em> If </em>we’re both sober by the end of the night, I’d enjoy some time at the shooting range myself as well.”</p><p>Nodding, Sunny picked out some of the other Specialists across the crowd and casually redirected their course towards them, speaking without looking over at Kirian next to him. “Let’s use that as an incentive to get through this, then.”</p><p>Humming in agreement, Kirian realised where they were going and immediately took another drink, sighing. “You’re tackling these conversations.”</p><p>“They’re our comrades now, Kirian. Diplomacy is everything.”</p><p>“What an <em> excellent </em>excuse for you to lead.”</p><p>Knowing he was never going to win the argument, especially because Kirian had a fair point, Sunny scoffed in amused agreement. “Fair.”</p><p> </p><p>True to his word, Kirian remained almost entirely silent during the conversations with their fellow Specialists, the soldiers all mingling around in generally the same area. It was a strange atmosphere between them all, as if there was a familiarity and comfort that had them all sticking together, but they also didn’t come across as <em> friends </em> with each other.<br/>Or at the very least like they were <em> willing </em>to come across as friends with each other.</p><p>An exception was Marrow of the Ace-Ops, who was more relaxed with Sunny than he was with his own team, due to having spoken with each other during their mutual time at the academy together on plenty of occasions, and having even trained together a couple of times when they were both being considered for early graduation and enlistment.<br/>Marrow had gotten it before Sunny had, but the familiarity remained even after a year.</p><p>“The uniform looks good on you guys.” Marrow grinned, bumping Sunny on the fist in greeting with a wide smile. “Welcome to the crew, don’t mind the others. They’re a bit stuffy, but they’re alright. Just determined to be the pros all the time, you know?”</p><p>“I get you. Can’t particularly blame any of them, not with the job they have.” Smiling back, the first genuine smile of the night, Sunny glanced around at the other Specialists all off in their own conversations.</p><p>“The job <em> we </em>have, man. You’re in now.” His grin faded slightly after a moment, and Marrow sighed. “...I’m sorry for how it went about happening though. About Petyr. He was a cool guy.”</p><p>Nodding sadly, Sunny trusted Marrow to probably be the first person at a party in weeks whose condolences were legitimate. “Yeah...I miss him. But...things go on, I guess.”</p><p>“I’m sorry we weren’t there. But things in the Deep Freeze were <em> crazy </em>for a bit, even Specialist Schnee had trouble getting permission to travel.” Regret pierced every feature on Marrow’s face, and his tail drooped, but Sunny reached out and put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly for a few moments.</p><p>“It’s alright. There was no way of seeing it coming. Not really. Most of us got out alive, and...I guess we have to focus on that.”</p><p>“Doesn’t change who <em> didn’t </em>though.” Shaking his head, Marrow seemed to consider grabbing a drink, but decided against it. “But we’ll all be there next time. And now, we’ll have your back directly. You’re one of us now.”</p><p> </p><p>Smiling in surprisingly comforted gratitude, Sunny glanced over at where Kirian was actually seeming to make easy conversation with a few of the others, though there was still a rigidity in his posture that Sunny suspected only he’d be able to notice. Kirian was notoriously hard to read, and unlike Sunny's practiced game-face Kirian’s instead came naturally as part of his innate coldness.<br/>With his Semblance allowing him to analyse, understand, and memorise, everything that he was able to observe and experience, Kirian would be a far more dangerous player of the Game if he cared enough to have the charisma for. But, his keen understanding of how it was played had led to him having a disdain for it that matched Zavraii’s own.</p><p>Being able to relax and not have to play it with their fellow Specialists, instead being able to simply <em> talk, </em> seemed to have him relaxed. Which was a blessing.<br/>It meant he might watch his tongue, even if just a little bit.</p><p>Sunny was snapped out of his cautious thoughts but a third figure joined their conversation, and he straightened when his commanding officer, Specialist Arthur Lance, spoke up warmly and clapped Marrow on the shoulder relaxedly, getting a welcome grin from the faunus.</p><p>“Sorry to interrupt but, Marrow, Clover was asking for you and you are rather <em> staggeringly </em>well hidden behind the sheer bulk of our new comrade here.”</p><p>“That may have been a <em> bit </em>deliberate.” Marrow grinned, before bumping Sunny on the shoulder with his fist as he passed. “We’ll hang soon, Sunny. Tell Zav I said hey.”</p><p>Nodding and smiling at his friend, Sunny turned to Arthur once Marrow was gone and straightened up slightly. “Sir, good to see you.”</p><p>“At-ease Specialist, you can relax. We’re off duty on nights like this.” Arthur smiled, sipping his own drink and his stance completely relaxed.</p><p> </p><p>If he was honest, Sunny wasn’t particularly sure how to feel about Arthur yet, and Zav hadn’t managed to find much on the man, which Zav considered to be a good sign. No scandals, no political affiliations, seemingly no business with any of the players in the city. He was simply a military man from a simple background, who had been a prodigy at the Academy and recruited into the unit. Now he was a squad commander. </p><p>Despite only being in his mid-twenties, the signs of his veterency showed themselves in scars that riddled his body. Not a single limb was without a few, including several scratches across his face.</p><p>But no matter the disfigurement, they couldn’t seem to take away from the confident and friendly air the man radiated.</p><p> </p><p>“If that’s the case sir, feel free to call me Sunny.” It was a risk, but one worth taking, so even as he smiled as relaxed as he could while he said it he still made sure to scrutinise for any discrepancies in the response.</p><p>But Arthur merely smiled happily and warmly and nodded, before offering his hand. “Sounds good to me, Sunny. But only if you call me Arthur. I’m glad I caught you, actually. Didn’t have the chance during your formal induction, but...it’s a privilege to have you as one of us. I’ve seen your records, and I watched the footage of your tournament fights. You more than deserve it.”</p><p>Grasping Arthur’s hand firmly, Sunny smiled in thanks. “Thank you. It’s...intimidating, if I can be honest with you.”</p><p>“Well I’d prefer honesty instead of lying.” Laughing, Arthur released Sunny’s hand, before nodding in understanding. “And it <em> is </em>intimidating, I can remember it. But we look out for our own, you’ll be fine. Both of you. Omarian is a good man, he’ll keep an eye on Specialist Phase. Meanwhile Violet will always be around for you during the times I’m not, but I’ll always try to be.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in understanding and gratitude again, Sunny let out a stressed breath and finished off his drink, Arthur following him over to the table for his refill and grabbing a glass himself, though of a different year, sighing in satisfaction as he took a sip.</p><p>Hearing a sound of laughter from across the room, both of them were caught by the sound and glanced over to where Jacques Schnee was confidently and loudly holding court with several of his ‘friends’ across the room, and Sunny picked out three members of the Gemgrind Coalition among them, his eyes narrowing.</p><p>“I do not envy you being placed as our liaison, Sunny.” Arthur hummed, his own eyebrow raising in distaste for the Schnee family head. “Be careful. His friendship with James has suffered a <em> lot </em>, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he took it out on him through you.”</p><p>“I’m prepared for that. Combined with his hatred of my own father, I’m in for a fun few months.”</p><p>“You sure you want to volunteer?” Arthur glanced over at him, and while the question was genuine there was something else in his eyes, a curiosity, but Sunny felt no need to lie.</p><p>“I can handle it, sir. Besides, apart from Kirian, none of you seem like the type for logistics.” Sunny risked a small grin, and was rewarded when Arthur laughed and nodded.</p><p>“You’re not wrong there, I guess. Won’t hurt to finally have some brains around here.” Grinning, Arthur gave a pointed but playful glance over to Marrow, and Sunny laughed for a moment before it immediately cut off at what he saw across the room.</p><p> </p><p>Forced to participate in the same conversations as her father, Weiss had been standing rigid and silent unless she was directly addressed, but had clearly been looking for her openings to escape even if just for a few minutes of reprieve to restore her own sanity and gain some composure, but her father was keeping a firm grip on her presence. Not physically, yet, but the sheer authority he held over her was evident in just how rigid she was, and how little she was looking at him even when he spoke to her.</p><p>But the more she tried to find her escapes, the tighter he was gripping her, and Sunny’s sharp eyes caught the man’s hand twitching at his side during her most recent attempt to find a reason to slip away.</p><p>The faint strange smell of burning sugar caught his attention, and he looked down at his glass to where the whiskey within it was starting to bubble from heat, and he quickly reinforced his grip on his Semblance and cooled, though not before Arthur raised his eyebrows at him from feeling the waves of heat.</p><p>“You alright there?”</p><p>“Yes. My apologies.”</p><p>“No harm no foul, happens to all of us.” Keeping a concerned gaze on Sunny for a few more moments, Arthur moved his eyes away when the band struck up and the middle of the floor cleared for anyone who felt like dancing.</p><p> </p><p>Unsurprising to both Sunny and Kirian, couples did indeed begin to. Dancing was just as political a move as conversation, and carried just as much social weight, if not <em> more </em>considering how intimate and trusting dancing was considered to be. Political alliances were forged on the dancefloor, and plenty of people would dedicate the rest of their night to studying who danced with who, and memorising just what it might mean. The two men had discussed it in advance, and Sunny was relieved when Kirian adjusted where he was standing so he could keep engaging in conversation but also keep an eye on the dancefloor at the same time, his Semblance able to commit every tiny detail to immaculate memory without him having to even try. He’d write out the list afterwards and send it through to Zav, alongside Sunny’s own notes on what he noticed and what was said, and then the third member of their team would do what he did best and pick it apart.</p><p>But for now, it was Sunny and Kirian, and while Kirian was playing his part perfectly (in fact better than expected if he was forging actual friendships among his colleagues), Sunny was distracted.</p><p>Following Sunny’s gaze, Arthur noted what he had been watching and gave a small smile, sipping his own drink and glancing back over at his new subordinate.</p><p>“Ah. I see.”</p><p>Blinking in surprise, Sunny understood and gave a laugh, shaking his head. “It’s not like that.”</p><p>“No?”</p><p>“I just worry. Jacques Schnee is…” Unable to think of a diplomatic way to put it, Sunny could only shake his head in frustration and disgust, and Arthur grunted in agreement.</p><p>“If his trade contracts weren’t so vital to the military, I doubt the General would want anything to do with him. None of us would. But...he is vital.”</p><p> </p><p>More laughter and noise from the same group across the room had them both look over again, and Sunny noticed that Jacques glass, which had been close to empty, was full once again. Weiss once again tried to slip away, giving a truly charming diplomatic smile to her father’s friends, and as she turned to head towards the table herself her father’s hand grabbed her wrist, stopping her with a jolt.</p><p>Weiss’ eyes froze and went wide, and a tremor went through every joint in her body as she immediately returned to her father’s side, her posture both rigid and weak at the same time as her father’s grip very gradually loosened on her wrist.</p><p>Having also noticed, Kirian immediately looked over at Sunny, dread in his gut as he saw the look in Sunny’s eyes. While Sunny could play the political chessmaster, and he was certainly good at it, he was a protector at heart. His upbringing had made him ambitious and cunning, but at his core he burned hot enough that he could melt Atlas from the sky.</p><p>Our Semblances come from who we truly are deep down.</p><p>And cold chessmasters don’t burn.</p><p> </p><p>So Kirian watched as Sunny took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearly considering a dangerously risky decision, and Kirian didn’t have to think too hard to know what was going through his mind. The Schnee and Whistlewind families had bad blood that went back to just before Jacques had become head of the family and had begun to be the main driving force of influence for the family and the company, and each family’s allies were positioned perfectly so that the two families never had to have anything to do with each other.</p><p>The sociopolitical climate of Atlas was precarious and delicate, and it was a web the remaining members of Team SPKZ had hinged a plan on plucking the threads and strings perfectly.<br/>But Kirian could do nothing but watch what happened next. It was out of his hands now.</p><p>Coming to his decision, Sunny calmly took the final gulp of his drink before placing the empty glass on the nearby table and smiling at Arthur, excusing himself, before casually making his way around the dancefloor towards Jacques Schnee and his crowd.</p><p>When Jacques acknowledged him with thinly-veiled disdain, and his friends blinked in surprise at Sunny’s appearance, Sunny ignored him entirely as he instead gave a polite and friendly nod and smile to Weiss and offered his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you care to join me for a dance, Miss Schnee?”</p><p> </p><p>Jacques and his friends were stunned entirely into silence at the move, with no idea how to respond beyond a small bluster that appeared in the man’s throat, and even Weiss stared at Sunny’s hand in shock. Over a decade of political duelling between the two families had just been upended and shattered with the eleven words of a simple question.<br/>The Whistlewind scion had just offered his hand to the Schnee heiress.</p><p>A thrill went through Weiss as she took in the completely genuine look in Sunny’s eyes, a warmth and confidence that would normally have to be hidden with the cold mask of the Atlesian Elite, and she couldn’t stop the small smile that touched the corners of her lips as she took advantage of her father’s shocked silence and delicately placed her hand on top of Sunny’s for him to lead her onto the dancefloor.</p><p> </p><p>“It would be my pleasure, Specialist Whistlewind.”</p><p> </p><p>Stepping onto the dancefloor and easily and gently spinning her so his hand was on her waist, neither of them said anything at first as they made their first circuit of the floor, well aware of just how many eyes were on them in complete shock. They both knew it was going to be the talk of the city for days, if not longer, but neither of them particularly cared that much.</p><p>Relaxing into the dance, able to breathe deeply and properly for the first time that night, Weiss gave Sunny a small but genuine smile.</p><p>“Thank you, Specialist Whistlewind.”</p><p>“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Schnee.” He smiled back at her, his body still radiating warmth from his Semblance just under the surface, and Weiss found it immensely comforting.</p><p>Her eyes sparkled for a moment.</p><p>“...congratulations on your appointment. Mister Phase as well. It’s more than deserved.”</p><p>“Thank you. We’ll certainly do our best to be worthy of it.”</p><p>“...I know you will.”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking at the familiarity of the response, Sunny noticed the small glimmer of warmth in Weiss’ eyes that was slowly coming through her gradually relaxing shields, and he allowed a bit of warmth to appear in his own expression. Neither of them said anything more as they continued their dance, but both of them gradually relaxed into the physical contact, Weiss even smiling widely the first time he twirled her, with her movements immaculately graceful, and she relaxed further into his grip as he twirled her back in.</p><p>At the end of the second dance, the attention of the room had left them for the most part, with even Jacques Schnee forced back into conversation with both allies and enemies as he was now forced to deal with the backlash of what his daughter was doing, his eyes leaving the dancefloor just long enough he didn’t notice when Sunny and Weiss vanished, the boy having been spending the entire second dance waiting just for that moment to whisk her away out of Jacques’ view and out of his grip.</p><p>Kirian watched them go as they vanished out of the room, before sighing and going back to conversing with the other Specialists.</p><p> </p><p>As Sunny and Weiss found a quiet corner in one of the less occupied sitting rooms of the house to sit and talk in privacy, for the most par, she was finally able to pluck up a glass of champagne and take a long sip from it as she sank down into one of two chairs, Sunny in the chair across from her with a fresh glass of whiskey of his own. Even despite his large mass and the sheer heat of his aura, he was starting to feel it, but only on the slight edges.</p><p>“I’m sure you’re not blind to the ramifications of what we might have just done.” Weiss raised her eyebrows at him as she crossed one leg over the other. “I’m sure you will pay for it just as much as I am sure to.”</p><p>“Without a doubt, yes.”</p><p>“So what could <em> possibly </em>have led you to think that was a good idea?”</p><p>Considering his answer for a few moments, Sunny simply gave a small smile and tapped his glass with his fingers silently. “Let’s just call it lack of impulse control.”</p><p>Blinking at his answer, her mouth opened slightly at her initial interpretation, and the faintest <em> faintest </em>sign of pink touched her cheeks, before she immediately disregarded that interpretation as a possible answer, and she nodded at any of the other explanations, taking a sip of her champagne to buy herself a few moments.</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>Seeing how his answer had been mistakenly interpreted and almost kicking himself for how vague he could sometimes be, Sunny chuckled to himself quietly and sighed relaxedly. “You looked as if you needed to get away from there.”</p><p>“...oh.” Nodding in understanding, Weiss composed her face again. “So it was a rescue, hmm?”</p><p>“Calling it a ‘rescue’ carries implications that I saw you as a helpless damsel.”</p><p>“It certainly does, doesn’t it.”</p><p>“Then I’d prefer we think of it as...an assisted tactical retreat out of an adverse situation.” Raising his eyebrows over his glass, Sunny grinned, and Weiss gave a small quiet giggle as she nodded.</p><p>“How very diplomatic. Well, I agree.”</p><p> </p><p>Both of them were quiet for a moment, before Weiss sighed and spoke quietly. “Though I don’t think I shall be doing much fighting and retreating anymore.”</p><p>Frowning, Sunny sat back. “What do you mean? I wouldn’t exactly consider you retired, Weiss.”</p><p>“Beacon is destroyed, and my place is now back here in Atlas. The <em> city </em>of Atlas, not even the frontier where I might be able to do my job.” Weiss spoke calmly, but there was a note of dejection and pain on the faintest edge of her tone. “From the battlefield I chose, back to the one I was all too glad to escape.”</p><p>She gestured at where they were, and the people around them, and Sunny nodded in understanding. Unconsciously reaching up to fiddle with his veterency medal on his jacket, Sunny’s thoughts briefly flickered away, but when he returned to the present he noticed Weiss staring at his medal, before her fingers went up and delicately ran along her own attached to her dress. As both of their minds went in the same direction, he watched as her eyes went distant, a faint cloud coming over them as memories sank claws into her and dragged her mind back to the worst days of their lives, in a city that was ablaze.</p><p>Both of them had been in the city for a couple of days longer than most, with Atlas being the last kingdom to retreat, and Weiss was considered among those numbers until her father had come for her <em> personally. </em> But it meant that the two of them, along with Kirian and Zav, had seen some of the more gruesome fighting as the battle had dragged on and devolved from militaristic clashes into bloodsoaked slugging matches between two exhausted sides.</p><p>He still vividly remembered the sight of her by the end, her silver hair and white dress both drenched in blood and mud, her beautiful rapier dripping crimson, and her eyes cold and dead. </p><p>The Atlesian mask was a defense that came in use not just in social situations.<br/>But she’d been rendered completely wordless by the end, her dust supplies drained to a point she had just had her sword skills, and it had been enough to deal with the stragglers that were still causing trouble.</p><p>None of SPKZ had been much better off by the time they’d slumped onto an Atlesian gunship, with a bodybag at their feet.</p><p> </p><p>Both himself and Weiss had the exact same distant and drained expressions on their faces as they both thought back to the same night, but eventually they dragged themselves back out of it and into the presence, both of them needing to take deep drinks from their glasses, with Weiss closing her eyes for a few moments to center herself.</p><p>“I’m so sorry about Petyr, Sunny.”</p><p>“...yeah. Me too.” Sighing, he closed his own eyes for a moment. “How was your team? Did you get to check in on them?”</p><p>Shaking her head sadly, Weiss thinned her lips and composed herself, sitting up straighter again and forcing her eyes to be clear and calm. “Well, I expect both Ruby and Yang are likely up and more than returned to fighting shape by now. I wouldn’t expect anything less from them.”</p><p>“...and Blake?”</p><p>Hesitating at that one, Weiss fought the urge to slightly slump once again, instead forcing herself to think over it as clearly as possible. She couldn’t deny that her thoughts about Blake were...complicated. Granted, her friendship with her teammate had always been complicated, but Blake’s friendships with <em> everybody </em> had been complicated.<br/>The other girl vanishing into the ruins of the city hadn’t been something Weiss had expected, but she hadn’t been able to catch her or stop her, instead forced to simply watch the girl stand from running her fingers through an unconscious Yang’s hair and leap up onto the rooftops in tears to disappear from sight.</p><p>But you don’t run away from your home without compelling reasons that are vitally important to you. In a few ways, Weiss understood that better than most people thought she might.<br/>She’d gone to Beacon instead of Atlas Academy when she hadn’t had to, after all.<br/>Going to a school halfway across the world from her home hadn’t been an accident.</p><p>So...she found she trusted Blake for having important reasons. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt to watch.</p><p>Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Weiss nodded determinedly.</p><p>“Wherever Blake has vanished to, I’m sure she’s okay.”</p><p>Watching her for a few moments as he absorbed her answer and mulled over it, Sunny nodded and gave a small smile.<br/>“I’m sure she is. She’s a survivor.”</p><p>Nodding in agreement, Weiss took another deep sip of her champagne, finishing the glass and quickly standing to grab another and then sit back down equally as quickly.</p><p>They sat quietly for a fair few minutes, mostly just enjoying each other’s quiet company and sipping their drinks, lost in their own thoughts, before Sunny eventually spoke up again.</p><p> </p><p>“You truly think your fighting days are over?”</p><p>“I’m a student Huntress, Sunny. I’m not licensed like you are. I need an academy’s permission, and Atlas Academy isn’t currently in session. Besides…” She sighed in frustration, with more than just a little bit of resignation. “I’m not entirely sure my father would permit me even if I wished to return to my training.”</p><p>“So you’ll be fighting the good fight through a career at your family’s company, then?”</p><p>“It’s the best I can currently do, until I think of something else.” Her voice developed a thin fabric of defensiveness to it, and her eyes cooled as she waited for criticism, before she instead blinked.</p><p>“We’ll do our best to make something of it, Weiss.”</p><p>“...we?”</p><p>At the confused tone in her voice, Sunny couldn’t quite swallow the grin that touched the corner of his mouth as he took the final sip of his drink, finishing it and resting the empty glass on his lap.</p><p>“I volunteered for the liaison position in the SDC Logistics department. Starting tomorrow, I’m...pretty sure I have an office next to yours.”</p><p>Whatever reaction he was expecting, he didn’t expect Weiss to gasp and for her eyes to tear up a few moments later, before she reached over and placed her hand on top of where his was on the armrest. Her hand was impossibly soft, with callouses only where she held her blade, and compared to his own body heat her skin was refreshingly cool.</p><p>Meeting his eyes with her own vulnerable ones, wet but not enough to shed tears properly, she let out a shaky breath as a true wave of reassurance and relief went through her. Every day she went into that building she was terrified, and alone. Cold halls, cold co-workers too afraid of her father to be warm to her, and nothing but stares from the ones who wouldn’t have bothered to speak to her even without her father…</p><p>Despite being her family’s business, her legacy, there wasn’t a place in the world she felt more alone.</p><p>So unable to stop herself, she squeezed his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“...thank you, Sunny.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking into her eyes for a few moments, he smiled, before surprising the both of them by turning his hand over to be able to properly hold hers gently. Weiss Schnee was one of the great unspoken prides of Atlas. Intelligent, capable, strong…<br/>Her father could try and smother and strangle her all he wanted, but there was no stopping her from being everything Atlas tried to pride itself on.</p><p>The Whistlewind family had always defended Atlas.</p><p>It was what his family lived for.<br/>And Sunny refused to lose anyone he cared about ever again.<br/>One was enough.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>When the morning came, it found Kirian laying awake early in his bed in his new quarters, hands folded underneath his head and staring up at his new roof. He always woke up early whether he wanted to or not, usually rising with the sun, but instead of getting up within minutes of his eyes opening he’d instead been looking up at his roof in thought for the better part of an hour, with the time to spare. His first full day in the R&amp;D department, he already had an idea of what was expected of him, with a folder waiting for him on his workstation assigning him to whatever first project the team leader’s thought best suited his particular mechanical talents.</p><p>But that wasn’t where his thoughts lingered, instead thinking over the events of the night before, rewatching it in his mind from start to finish, beginning at Zavraii’s house and continuing on until he’d left the party at around midnight, before Sunny had reemerged with Weiss. Sending his compiled report on the party through to Zav by the time he’d returned to the military base, he’d gone straight to bed.</p><p>If the events of last night were in danger of becoming a regular occurrence, he knew he’d have to start attending more parties just to keep an eye on Sunny. And also do his best to keep the other man focused on the task at hand, and not distracted by thoughts and concerns of Weiss.<br/>The girl could handle herself. She was likely going to end up hurt and strained, but she wouldn’t break, it wasn’t in her nature.</p><p>Meanwhile Sunny had a job to do, and both Kirian and Zav were doing theirs.</p><p> </p><p>Speaking of.</p><p> </p><p>Finally pushing the blankets off and sitting up, Kirian ran his hands over his face and pushed himself to his feet, pulling his sleepshirt over his head on his way to the bathroom and tossing it over his shoulder before hopping in the shower, keeping it cold and quick just to wash off the remnants of sweat from sleep and jolt himself awake. His uniform was already folded and laid out ready on his desk, he’d set it out the previous night, and he hopped out of the shower after only a few minutes of scrubbing and dressed quickly and efficiently, eyeing himself in the mirror as he fixed the buckles.</p><p>Personal designs for his own uniform and gear were already drawn up in his mind. While he would be forced to wear white from here on it, he could at least minimize the amount of it, able to add some of his preferred dark greys instead.<br/>Holstering his pistols on each hip after loading them, he looked himself in the mirror and took in his appearance properly, humming in satisfaction. A quick breakfast, brushing his teeth and fixing his hair, and he was ready, the process taking less than twenty minutes. Laying out his satchel on the bed, he packed it with the necessities he might need for the day, including his laptop and a few folders of his personal notes and designs.</p><p>Zipping it up and tapping his hands on it, he knew he was procrastinating the next part, and he hesitated, one of the most uncharacteristic responses he could ever have, before glancing over at his wardrobe.</p><p> </p><p>Stepping over from the bed and resting his hand on the doorknob gently, he stared blankly at the door in thought for a few minutes. Their plan was far more delicate than it looked on paper, with each of them having parts to play that couldn’t afford any mistakes. While it might be rushing for him to perform his next part on his first ever shift, running the risk of getting caught while there was more supervision on him than there was going to be after a few weeks, he knew that the earlier it was done and they were able to rely on it, the better.</p><p>But that wasn’t the only reason for the procrastination.</p><p>Opening his wardrobe and pulling out his sealed suitcase, he laid it on the bed and unlocked it, before gently flipping it open.</p><p><br/>Reaching in, he slowly pulled out Petyr’s satchel.</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at the frayed but well-loved bag, dark green like most of Petyr’s accessories had been as a nod to his Mistralian heritage, he ran his fingers over it softly, able to perfectly remember every single day that a new rip or frayed edge had appeared on it, whether he’d glimpsed it in his peripheral vision or seen it happen.<br/>Glancing at the flap, his eyes lingered on the brown marks of dried blood, and he slightly bit the inside of his bottom lip as a lump formed in his throat.</p><p>Some particular details he wished he would be able to forget, but he knew he never would. He’d be forced to be able to perfectly recall them for the rest of his life.<br/>Closing his eyes, he took in a deep and pained breath before letting it out slowly, rubbing his eyes tiredly.</p><p>Their entire plan hinged on a hunch. The hunch that Petyr really was the smartest out of all of them.</p><p>...which was a hunch that the three of them were willing to bet everything on.</p><p> </p><p>So no longer willing to put it off, Kirian opened his eyes and opened the bag before reaching inside, sifting through before pulling out three things that no-one in Atlas knew they still had, and one of them they would be thrown into prison if Atlas found out they’d kept;</p><p> </p><p>Kirian pulled out both Petyr’s tablet, his wristpad...and Penny’s memory core.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at the three items for only a few moments before forcing himself to keep moving, he shoved them into his own satchel for the day before closing Petyr’s bag and returning it to his suitcase, then the suitcase back to his wardrobe. Throwing his bag over his shoulder, he briskly made his way out of his quarters, locking his door behind him, and began the walk through the winding corridors towards the R&amp;D department.<br/>Plenty of the other Specialists were up and about already, unsurprisingly, and he gave small smiles and nods to the ones he’d spent the previous night speaking to. Most of them were likeable enough, easy to talk to, and plenty of them far more understanding of his cold and brusk nature than most other Atlesian officials he’d met. It was strangely comforting, so he didn’t feel too much like an outsider as he made his way through the halls of the Specialist Department and exited out into the main massive corridors of the central military base.</p><p>The walk to the R&amp;D Department required numerous trips up and down different elevators, passing through four other departments, and crossing over one of the courtyards in the freezing morning weather, but eventually he was tagging his credentials on the door and stepping into the thankfully warm building. While he didn’t really feel or notice the cold, stepping into warmth was always relaxing and reassuring, satisfying some deeply buried unconscious instinct to be wary of unsafe weather, and he rolled his shoulders.</p><p>Having been shown around the entire building during his induction the previous day, and introduced to all the right people and shown the correct procedures, he updated his tablet at the central terminal with updated versions of any data that had been worked on overnight and sat down at his own terminal, transferring the data into his files and getting to work on his day.</p><p>He had to wait for the perfect moment when the halls were empty enough that he could slip into one of the central server rooms as unnoticed as possible, but with how busy that section of the department was even this early in the morning he’d likely have to wait almost he entire day, or even until late at night.</p><p>But that didn’t bother him much.</p><p> </p><p>Checking his files, he raised an eyebrow when he saw that due to his proven expertise in weapons and engineering he’d been assigned to the Cavalier Project, an attempt to create a drone that was a middle ground between the Atlesian Knights and the Paladins, preferably able to handle the insane colds of the Deep Freeze so that soldiers and Huntsmen didn’t have to be deployed.<br/>The sheer freezing temperatures of the Deep Freeze regions were cold enough that normal Knights and Paladins froze within minutes, the metal unable to handle it even if reinforced by dust. The Knights were too frail and the Paladins were too heavy, so a middle-ground was considered a decent workaround.</p><p>Glancing at a few current drafts for blueprints, he rolled his eyes at most of them before getting to work for the day, attending the right meetings and having plenty of quietly frustrating conversations with other members of the same team. As a Specialist he had far more access than most of the other scientists and engineers in the R&amp;D Department, and he was more than happy to use it to access older data and designs that had been basically classified for being too dangerous, or decommissioned for being too expensive.</p><p>So, while doing his proper work for the day, he made sure to take copies of all the things he found interesting as well. Which, thanks to his clearance, wasn’t actually illegal.</p><p>The hours every day he’d spend in the workshops and labs were always going to be his favourites. He didn’t mind sitting at terminals and doing soft work, he was good at it, but it didn’t suit him as much as practical engineering did, and his skill quickly became obvious to the others, earning either approval, curiosity, or in some cases a small degree of animosity for coming out of nowhere with it.</p><p>It was going to be his work every single day, in one way or another, and as he settled into the rhythm of it he found that he was fine with that. The team work and official projects were engaging and worth helping with, especially since it meant that he had personal access to the databases and the labs as well for his own work. The sheer amount of resources and funding given to the R&amp;D Department was absurd, and there was a quiet voice that sounded a lot like Zavraii that was furious that the military was allowed to have so much excess funding even while people starved and froze to death in the slums of Mantle.<br/>Even though the voice sounded like Zav’s, Kirian agreed with it, even as he got to work.</p><p> </p><p>But eventually, after keeping a careful eye out the entire day, he had his moment. As he had expected it wasn’t until the evening when most of the staff had gone home for the day, with only those who <em> loved </em> their work or had work to catch-up on still lingering in the building.<br/>Closing his own terminal and putting it on standby, before glancing around at the lack of people nearby, Kirian grabbed his satchel and quickly made his way to one of the server rooms, swiping his pass to enter and then closing the door behind him.</p><p>Like all server rooms, it was freezing cold inside, his breath visible in the air as he made his way through the stacks until he reached the command terminal for the room. Every server room in Atlas communicated with all the others, with the entire city itself connected and dependent on a central network that was separated into multiple levels. But like every multilevel network, the levels all had to speak to each other at certain crossroad points. And the <em>key</em> crossroad, a central point between all the different levels of the Atlesian Network, from the military data through to the heating and water, and even corporate servers...was right here, the R&amp;D Department.</p><p>This moment, being in this room right now, was the <em> entire </em>reason Kirian getting into the Specialist Program had been a vital part of the plan that everything had hinged on. </p><p>So he had to be quick, and he had to do this right.</p><p>And most of all, their hunch had to be right.</p><p> </p><p>Reaching into his satchel, he retrieved Petyr’s gear and Penny’s memory core.</p><p>Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he laid Petyr’s wristpad on the counter and switched it on for the first time since they’d returned to Atlas. The first time any of them had dared to even really touch it.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Come on Petyr. Come on…’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The wristpad blipped and activated, before calibrating slightly slower than it normally did. Eventually, words appeared on the screen, and Kirian mouthed them slightly as he read them.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Use tablet as bridge between core and server.’ </em>
</p><p>Grinning in satisfaction, Kirian switched on Petyr’s tablet, and wasn’t surprised when a totally unique screen came up and a program activated. The small light attached to Penny’s memory core began to blink, but instead of the usual green it blinked with for Penny it instead blinked the silver colour of steel. Petyr’s tablet flicked between program screens rapidly as the command terminal in front of Kirian came to life, the tablet communicating with it.</p><p>A bar gradually filled on the terminal as the light on Penny’s core blinked faster and faster, and when it filled up and the screen of the terminal briefly went black, the light on Penny’s memory core switched from steel back to bright green.</p><p>Looking up at the screen above him, Kirian held his breath for a moment as the screen flickered back to life, hundreds of lines of code entering and spinning through at a speed that would have been too fast for anyone except Kirian to read. </p><p>Eventually they finished, and the screen flickered again.</p><p> </p><p>Unsure what to expect next, Kirian waited for another moment, before his eyes widened in surprise and a massive lump appeared in his throat, a pained rush going through his body, as the sound of Petyr’s voice began to speak, sounding as if he was in agony and his breathing was labored.</p><p>
  <em> “Hey guys, I don’t...have a lot of time. If you’re hearing this, you’ve done what I’ve hoped, somehow you’ve thought of it. You need to listen, because my wristpad says I don’t have much time left.” </em>
</p><p>There was a labored and wet cough, and Kirian squeezed his eyes closed before gripping the console tightly, forcing himself to listen as Petyr kept speaking, his voice drained and slightly weaker.</p><p>
  <em> “I’ve turned off the virus infecting the Knights and Paladins, and I know who did it. You need to believe me, as impossible as it sounds. Arthur Watts is alive. I don’t know how, but he is, and he helped do this. If he’s alive, you need to look into the Paladin Incident. If you find him, you can help fix what’s happening here.” </em>
</p><p>Petyr’s voice briefly stopped as the sound of crashing and loud banging started, which Kirian’s memory recognised as the communications tower starting to weaken and collapse as the dragon had crashed into it for the first time as it had been flying towards Beacon Tower itself. After the few bits of rubble that had fallen settled, Petyr spoke again.</p><p>
  <em> “The program I just put onto Penny’s memory core will settle into the Atlas network and start looking for any trace of Arthur’s coding, and will send any names and locations it finds it through to my wristpad. It won’t damage Penny’s coding, but she’ll likely remember it being inside her memory core. I’ve spoken to her, and she’s okay with it. You can trust her. And she trusts you.” </em>
</p><p>Another pause, but this time the sound of Petyr’s breathing was audible, rasping and burdened, and Kirian knew it was due to the internal bleeding which had been slowly filling his lungs and drowning him from the inside. His eyes still closed, he gripped the console so tightly there was the quiet groaning of metal, and his knuckles hurt.</p><p>
  <em> “I wish I could be there to help, but it’s up to you guys. Atlas is compromised in a way it hasn’t been for years, and the three of you know every other way that the city is in danger from itself too. But you can stop it. I know you can. Ask team SKTC for help, you know they will.” </em>
</p><p>More coughing, and his voice was growing so weak and tired. Kirian forced his grip to relax as he opened his eyes and looked up at the screen, some small part of him wishing that he could see his friend’s face somehow, but also knowing it wasn’t going to happen. So instead he just listened, in a small way thankful that his memory would capture all of it.<br/>Because he knew that after this, he was never going to hear Petyr’s voice again.</p><p><em> “You can do this. I know you can. Don’t let what happened here happen to our home. Find Arthur Watts, find who helped him. Solve the Paladin Incident. I can’t be there to help you, but my Semblance can keep sending you names and locations. Return Penny’s memory core to her father Pietro Polendina down in Mantle, and if he rebuilds her then she’ll help you. </em> <em><br/></em> <em><br/></em> <em> ...thank you for everything, boys. I was...so lonely. And Atlas was so cold at first. But you guys never were. Thank you. Tell Chrystal I love her, and feel safe asking her and her team for help. Look after her for me. You can do this. I believe in you. </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Goodbye.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>As Petyr’s voice grew weaker and weaker, trailing off, Kirian watched the blank screen as blankly as he could manage as he listened to coughing and rasping, along with the faint sounds of fighting coming from outside. Timeline wise, he knew that himself and Zav were going to find Petyr within the next thirty seconds.</p><p>Thirty seconds. They’d been<em> thirty seconds</em> too slow.</p><p>Eventually, after another few moments of coughing, the sound of Petyr’s breathing stopped.</p><p>Ten seconds later, the recording ended.</p><p> </p><p>Standing in total silence as time stretched on and on, the room going dark again as the terminal turned off, Kirian closed his eyes as Petyr’s words ran through his head over and over again, a strange cold sweat almost on the verge of breaking out on his skin.<br/>Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Kirian calmly slid Petyr’s tablet back into his bag, along with Penny’s memory core.</p><p>Hesitating a few moments longer, Kirian’s expression steeled and his aura briefly flickered underneath his skin in response to his determined rage, an emotion he thought himself incapable of feeling.</p><p>They would do it. The three of them would manage this, they’d solve all of it.<br/>And when it was gone, he was going to make sure it was Petyr that was remembered for it.<br/>His friend deserved that much.</p><p>Picking up Petyr’s wristpad from the counter, he hesitated only a moment before attaching it to his own wrist.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And this is the last we'll be seeing of SPKZ for quite a while!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Sharp Eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Team SKTC begin to close the distance to Ywitawa, but the tension between Shina and Chrystal begins to reach a boiling point. But Tacita's eyes are forced to notice every detail, they always are. While Ywitawa offers few answers, what it instead gives are a myriad of secrets that could change everything they thought they'd been told the truth about.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>While the chill in the air of a Mistral winter was certainly colder than in Vale, the lack of snow and the concrete-hard earth beneath feet was a welcome change, making it easier to travel along roads that would have otherwise been either ankle-deep in mud, or covered in a thick blanket of snow.</p><p>Adjusting her bag on her shoulder, Tacita glanced around at their surroundings as SKTC travelled, mindlessly counting the trees in her boredom at the tedious trip, everything looking the same for the most part as the days passed. They’d been able to stop in a few towns along the way, the occasional warm meal and roof over their heads, but usually it was cold nights around a campfire, and sitting on watch wrapped in a blanket.<br/>None of the others had complained about the tedious walking yet, the monotony only broken up by the occasional fight with small packs of roaming Grimm, with no civilisation nearby to attract anything particularly large out of the deep forests.</p><p>The next town was only a few hours walk away, after around three days of complete desolate frozen forest, and all four of them were looking forward to even a basic hot dinner and bed, their standards having been progressively falling as days had gone by.</p><p> </p><p>Shina was humming a mindless tune quietly behind her, lost in his own thoughts, tapping the fingers of his right hand on his thigh lightly at whatever he was mulling over, whether it was plans for the next leg of their journey or something more serious. The man hadn’t spoken much since stepping off the ship the better part of a fortnight ago, while just in front of her Kylar was turning a small fire crystal into flickering flames and then back into dust again, repeating it back and forth in an attempt to make the transmutation process mindless and instinctual for when he’d truly need it. As he’d gradually focused on internally coming to peace with his particular brand of over-ambitious passion and intensity, his resonance with red dust had begun to stabilise, and he had gradually accepted the many different lessons he would have to learn if he was to master his Semblance.</p><p>It was going to require a unique kind of training. But he’d shown that he was willing to do it, and while initially he’d been doing it purely to perfect his Semblance and understand it, it now seemed as if the internal results of the training itself were the primary motivation, and it made Tacita smile whenever she caught his attunement to different dusts improving.</p><p>But the two dusts he had never managed to transmute at all yet were gravity and hardlight, the two most finicky and complex dusts being entirely beyond his ability to fabricate. He didn’t even know where to start.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Chrystal was completely silent, a slight distant look in her eyes showing that she was clearly daydreaming out of boredom, her hands in her pockets and a slight playful sway in her step as she couldn’t help but move to the music playing through her earphones. Despite her seemingly upbeat demeanor, Tacita was worried, and had been ever since watching as Chrystal got drunk in every town they passed through. While it wasn’t exactly unusual for her and Shina to get into their cups, she had been consistently crossing a line. When you drink enough that your aura flickers, you’re not drinking to enjoy yourself, even someone like Tacita who almost never drank at all could figure that much out on her own.</p><p>But, whenever they’d all checked in on each other around the campfire every few nights, asking each other how they were holding up and if they had any concerns (a routine that Kylar had started, to help everyone stay calm to try and remain undetected by Grimm), Chrystal always waved them off with a small smile and a shrug. And she’d made it obvious a full year ago that if someone tried to push honesty out of her even an inch, she’d grind in her heel and just throw up walls that could last for days.<br/>And they needed her tuned in, so they had silently agreed to take the risk of letting her lie.</p><p>Even as she mulled in the thoughts of her teammates, Tacita made sure to keep her Semblance extended to keep a constant eye on their surroundings, her bow in her hand and her quiver activated with the low electric hum that only she could hear. The others trusted her to keep an eye out and alert them for danger, that was her role, it always was.<br/>And she didn’t like failing.</p><p> </p><p>It was how, a few hours later, she first saw the signs of danger far ahead of them through the trees before any of the others had a chance of noticing, and her eyes widened.</p><p>“Guys, up ahead. We’ve got ruins.”</p><p> </p><p>Even before she’d finished the first word, the others had their weapons out and at the ready just in case, and they each simply glanced at each other before taking off at a run, Chrystal speeding ahead of the others and skidding to a stop on the outskirts of the town they’d had every intention of resting at for the night, the sun already lowering in the sky and helping the trees to cast long shadows.</p><p>Swearing silently, Chrystal spun her pistols in her hands as she glanced around the ruined buildings, making sure to spin in slow circles so it was impossible for anything to catch her unawares from behind. The others caught up a few moments later, and Tacita immediately stopped in the town square before focusing her aura and extending her Semblance as far as she could while the other three formed a triangle around her to cover her, the only sound being the slowly rotating cylinders of Kylar’s staff.</p><p>But there was no need for it, as Tacita sighed and slumped, retracting her Semblance and looking down at the ground in defeat, her grip on her bow loosening enough that the others relaxed.</p><p>Glancing at her, Shina took in her expression and knew the answer before he asked, but he had to ask anyway. “Anything?”</p><p>“...no. Nothing.”</p><p>At the defeat and grief in Tacita’s voice, Kylar cupped her cheek and gave her a sad but reassuring look, and they both looked into each other’s eyes for a moment before Chrystal spoke up, the girl spinning her guns back into her holsters.</p><p>“Let’s look around anyway. There...there might not be anyone to save, but there still might be clues about what happened here.”</p><p>Looking around at the collapsed buildings and intense signs of damage, including scorch marks and signs of explosions along the stone streets, there were a lot of signs that it hadn’t been Grimm, not entirely. But people panic in a fight, and there was no way of knowing for sure what happened at a glance.</p><p>“Alright.”  Shina nodded in agreement, sheathing his sword on his back and turning to the others with a calm expression, as reassuring as possible in his composure. “Chrystal and I will check inside the buildings themselves, you two look through the streets. As much as it’s going to suck, check the bodies and try and figure out what killed them.”</p><p>Nodding quietly, Tacita put her bow onto her back and extended her semblance again, travelling her gaze along the town streets as Shina and Chrystal jogged away, the girl hopping up into the higher windows of buildings and using her nimbleness to traverse rubble without causing any further collapses, meanwhile Shina had the brute strength to break down jammed doors of the more intact structures and checking inside of them.<br/>In Grimm attacks, plenty of people had the instinct to grab their precious belongings to attempt to flee with them, so checking for those sorts of things would be a clue as to what happened. You have the time to do that in a Grimm attack, you <em> don’t </em>have time for it when dealing with bandits.</p><p>Meanwhile Kylar sighed sadly, and straightened his shoulders in determination before he began to check the bodies, some of them burnt to a crisp but plenty of others dead from either slashes or...bullet wounds. The state of the bodies made it clear that what had happened here had happened just over a week ago, maybe two, the sheer cold temperature keeping the bodies just preserved enough the wounds were clear and visible.</p><p>Once he had his answers, he returned to the center of town where his girlfriend was almost done checking each of the streets, her hands folded in front of herself as she focused and her eyes glowing brightly with her Semblance. As Kylar reached her, she returned to her own proximity and gave a resigned shake of her head, having seen enough of the sort of damage to the streets and buildings to come to the same conclusion he did.</p><p>“From the sort of firepower they were up against...they didn’t stand a chance.”</p><p>“No, they didn’t. How many do you think are dead? Two hundred?”</p><p>“Closer to three hundred.” She spoke quietly, looked down and away again, and this time when Kylar went to comfort her it didn’t seem to help.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t the first ruins they’d come across, and while they had their routine fully figured out by now it still didn’t make it any easier on her. The worst ones were the times they <em> did </em> find survivors, because even when they did...they were almost always too far away from other civilisations to be able to have a chance of saving them. Instead all they could do was patch up those that might be able to recover, or put those who were suffering on death’s door out of their misery.<br/>Shina was usually the one who volunteered to do that part.<br/>Even if it was children.</p><p>And she suspected only she was able to see just what it was doing to him.</p><p>Drumming her fingers on her bow, Tacita extended her Semblance again and gazed around the village streets. People had done this. They had swept out of the trees and massacred a town, likely taking anything usable that wasn’t nailed down, setting as many buildings on fire as possible, and then leaving. This wasn’t a major town, there wouldn’t have been anything worth stealing here except for food, blankets, and maybe basic tools.</p><p>Monsters.</p><p>At least the attack on Beacon had been for a grander purpose than that, as sickening as it was to her to consider that aspect of the attack on their home. She was still barely sleeping, her nightmares filled with the bloodshed. And she had seen a lot of it, forced to watch dozens of people fighting and dying at the same time, in every direction without anywhere she could turn to be able to look away even for a moment, without even the sanctuary of closing her eyes working like the others were able to do.<br/>Unable to handle looking any further without losing the composure to swallow the darkness rising inside of herself, Tacita retracted her Semblance again and rested her head against Kylar’s chest in the search for comfort, and he didn’t hesitate a moment to wrap his free arm around her and press a kiss to the top of her head, warmth blooming under her skin from the contact.</p><p>Waiting quietly, eventually Kylar looked up when Shina and Chrystal rejoined them, the two of them looking just as defeated as Tacita did and as Kylar felt. While Shina looked in thought despite his dejection, Chrystal instead had her blank wall firmly in place behind her eyes. There was no way of knowing what she was thinking, but the fact she stood with them in the cluster instead of keeping her distance was a good sign.</p><p>“Anything?” Kylar didn’t have any optimism in the question, and it was confirmed when Shina shook his head.</p><p>“Bandits.”</p><p>“Yeah…”</p><p>The four of them were silent for a few moments, with no idea what to say, before suddenly Chrystal spun and drew one of her pistols, firing three explosive shots into a nearby tree and causing the bark to detonate, almost blowing a chunk large enough that the trunk would give out.</p><p>
  <b> <em>“I can’t stand this.”</em> </b>
</p><p>Staring at her in surprise for a moment, Shina felt a lump of pain in his gut before tentatively and sadly placing his hand on her back, causing her to deflate and her hand to fall down by her side, drumming her fingers on the grip of her pistol.</p><p>“Think the gang that did this are still close?...” There was an edge to her voice that caused Tacita to flinch behind her, but she also didn’t entirely blame her for what she clearly had in mind..</p><p>“This was a week ago, maybe two, and there are no other villages nearby for miles.” Tacita shook her head even though Chrystal couldn’t see. “They’re long gone.”</p><p> </p><p>The four of them returned to looking around at the ruins silently and hopelessly for another minute, before Kylar frowned, his eyes lingering on the scorched foundation of a nearby house. Humming in thought, he made the handful of steps over before examining the damage done to the wood bricks, the unique scorch marks that had turned the bricks black. The others watched silently and curiously as he reached a hand out to run his fingers along the marks, before he looked over his shoulder at the others with a frown.</p><p>“Lightning damage. Just like what Ysgar could do, but stronger.”</p><p>“Stronger than lightning dust? Could be some sort of explosive.” Being the resident explosive expert, Tacita made her way over to her boyfriend and studied the damage herself, glancing at Kylar next to her as he shook his head slowly.</p><p>“Even I’d have trouble matching this unless I hyperdosed.”</p><p>“So what are you thinking?”</p><p>“...I’m not sure yet. Hang on.”</p><p> </p><p>Straightening up, Kylar closed his eyes for a few moment to focus, bringing his aura to his eyes and his connection to dust at the same time, guiding his Semblance to his awareness before opening his eyes. Immediately all the signs of damage caused by dust nearby were glowing to his sight, the different types of dust shimmering in his view even after the time that had passed. There was very little, the bandits clearly not having used much in the way of dust ammunition or explosives.</p><p>He turned his attention back to the lightning damage on the building in front of him and narrowed his eyes to scrutinise it, before drawing in a breath as his theory was confirmed. The lingering energy from the lightning glowed in his sight, but unlike the shimmering crystalline sparkling of dust energy, the lightning marks glowed as if it was from within, a pure source of energy.<br/>Looking at it and being so attuned to it gave him a strange feeling of recognition in his stomach, and his mind immediately went to how it had felt to compete his own energy against Cinder’s, and how hers had felt when it had touched his aura.</p><p>Reaching a finger out again, he placed it on the marks and nodded in further confirmation when it felt the same way, except much purer but also weaker from the time that had passed. This had been the power of a Maiden, and with a preference for lightning just as Qrow Branwen had mentioned, that meant it was likely Spring.<br/><br/></p><p>Rowena.</p><p>But...if she’d helped to attack a town...</p><p> </p><p>Taking in a deep and worried breath before straightening back up, he turned to the others, who each raised their eyebrows at how his eyes were shimmering. While not glowing like Tacita’s did, they were shining under the surface, but it faded as he turned his vision back to normal.</p><p>“The Spring Maiden did this. She was here.”<br/><br/>While the other three reacted in surprise, Chrystal sucking in a deep breath next to Shina, it didn’t surprise him when the implications occurred to Shina first and his team leader closed his eyes in a spark of anxiety and uncertainty, biting his lips in a rush of thought.</p><p> </p><p>Next to her brother, Chrystal’s composure broke.</p><p>“Great. Fantastic. <em> Fucking </em>awesome. A bandit queen with superpowers.” Growling in frustration, Chrystal threw her hands up in the air and began to storm in aggressive circles, before slamming her fist into the side of the nearest building to herself with enough force the weakened wood splintered violently and her aura sparked.</p><p>“Because an evil Maiden hasn’t caused us <em> any </em> problems in the past. Not at all. Not like we’re <em> very </em> aware of how <em> utterly </em>outmatched that makes anyone who gets between a Maiden and whatever she wants.”</p><p>Resting her forehead against the wood for a moment, she drew her fist back to drive it into the wood again, but Shina had reached her side and caught her arm to stop her, his face set, sympathetic but firm.</p><p>“Easy, Butterfly. We don’t know details.”</p><p>“What the hell are we meant to do now...?” She easily yanked her arm out of his grasp, fixing him with a desperate glare before storming back into the center of the town square. “The person we were sent to ask for help is one of the sort of people who burned our home to the ground.”</p><p> </p><p>Tacita caught the desperate tears on the edges of Chrystal’s eyes, and she almost stepped forward to comfort her until she stopped herself, knowing that Chrystal wouldn’t let her even if she tried, and would likely just feel pitied.<br/>Sighing, Shina silently agreed with Chrystal. He didn’t have any answers, and he could tell that neither Kylar or Tacita did either. They’d been working on the assumption that the Maiden would be a force for good, that Cinder would be some sort of exception.<br/>A naive assumption, clearly. Another one.</p><p>“We still have to find her.” Shina got her attention, and glanced around at all of them. “We find her, and then we know for sure. Maybe she doesn’t know what happened to Beacon, I doubt she knows any of the details concerning her powers. She might be able to see reason.”</p><p>While Kylar and Tacita looked contemplative, each of them mulling over it, Chrystal instead just gave a loud and manic laugh as if it was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard, the girl crossing her arms over her chest and fixing him with a raised eyebrow, her voice amused and sarcastic.<br/>“Right. Okay. <em> Sure. </em> Even if we <em> could </em> find her, I’m sure that conversation would go <em> swimmingly </em> , if she doesn’t just <em> kill us </em> on the spot for knowing about her existence. She <em> abandoned Ozpin and the others, </em> Shina, and clearly started burning towns to the ground. That’s a pretty clear message she’s done.”</p><p>“Well, what do <em> you </em>suggest then?” Shina shot back, his eyes flashing frustrated, but it didn’t deter Chrystal, who merely shrugged and snorted, but she didn’t respond.</p><p>The two of them held each other’s stare for a while, Shina’s frustrated glare being easily held back by Chrystal’s resigned blank wall, and the other two simply watched silently as the tension held. After a minute of silence, Chrystal looked away first, before shaking her head and starting to make her way towards the other side of town, spinning her pistols out of their holsters.</p><p>“The next town is only a few hours further. We can get there by the time it’s dark. If it’s not rubble.”</p><p> </p><p>Watching her go, the three remaining members looked at each other, Tacita and Kylar’s faces filled with concern while Shina couldn’t hide his frustration at his best friend. Something was going on, and it was starting to <em> really </em>get under his skin.</p><p>But they followed anyway, walking fast enough they eventually caught up, but Chrystal didn’t acknowledge them, even when the lights of the next town illuminated the darkening road a few hours later.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>None of them were surprised when Tacita went to bed early, kissing Kylar goodnight the moment she finished eating a light dinner and heading upstairs to their room. She always tired first, her Semblance draining her, and they knew she liked to meditate for a while before she went to sleep. It seemed to calm her focus, but it also meant she went to bed in silence.</p><p>The small tavern in town was cozy and warm, with decent food and enough noise the three of them could zone out but enough volume that it wasn’t uncomfortable or tense, despite the fact they were strangers in the small village. According to the people they’d asked for directions, they were only four days walk from their original destination of Ywitawa. Which meant that at their speed, they’d reach it in three.</p><p> </p><p>But once they got there, what would they do? What was the plan now?</p><p> </p><p>If the silence at the table was any indication, none of them knew, and eventually Kylar finished his meal and stood as well, but instead of heading up to bed he simply pulled his jacket on, grabbed his staff, and headed off into the night, always doing his best thinking when he was on his own with noone to distract him.</p><p>That seemed to break the thin tethers that had been having them all stick by each other, and Chrystal stood to go sit at the bar itself so that she could drink in a constant stream, while Shina was content to remain at the table in silence, picking at his food and accepting refills whenever the sweet girl tending the room offered it. When she gave him a smile, he returned it with a small flicker of warmth in his eyes, and she blushed prettily. It had been ‘a while’ for him and so he considered flirting further, in every need for the stress relief and the warm comfort after the discovery earlier in the day, so he ordered another drink and she seemed to willingly linger by his table to chat with him for a while before she was drawn away to return to work, a sway in her hips as she did so.</p><p>So that was where he stayed, listening as the room grew progressively rowdier as more and more people arrived for dinner and to drink for the night, but at his table in the corner of the room he was easy to ignore, and he contented himself with pondering plans that he dismissed just as quickly when he realised each one might end in a different level of disaster.</p><p> </p><p>What should they do now?</p><p> </p><p>While he still believed they should find the maiden anyway, it was mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else. If anything it would give them closure, even if Rowena didn’t heed their warning they could at least find the closure of knowing they’d given it, and then they could just head to Haven to defend the vault themselves until Ruby and her friends arrived in a couple of months. They had friends in Haven. Or at the very least potential allies. All four members of Team LAVA had made it out of the battle, and he was willing to bet it wouldn’t be hard to reach out to them. They didn’t seem like the type to refuse to fight the good fight.</p><p>Nodding when he was satisfied with his plan, as basic as it was, it was simply just going to be a case of convincing the others. Kylar and Tacita would be on-board, he could easily predict that, but as for...</p><p> </p><p>Glancing up towards the bar, he saw Chrystal talking loudly and enthusiastically with a pair of men, and she was clearly drinking heavily and quickly from how loud she was being already, all smiles and sass. But there was a tiredness and focus to it that he knew how to see, in the narrowness of her eyes.<br/>Sighing in a mixture of concern and frustration, Shina ran his finger along the rim of his cup as he watched her. Whatever was going on, it was bad, and getting worse.</p><p>Ever since the day they’d left.</p><p>And she also wasn’t sleeping. None of them were. But she was the one sneaking off when the others wouldn’t notice to go be on her own.</p><p>Running his hands over his face in frustration, he rested his chin on his hand and watched the room, his eyes flicking everywhere and making sure to check every person around them one by one, his gaze eventually reaching the bar. Chrystal was still wearing her full harness, just like his own sword was leaning against the table in reach, and he noticed as the two men who had her attention kept glancing at the hilts of her blades visible over her shoulders, taking stock of her.<br/>Frowning slightly, Shina studied the men themselves, his eyes hardening when he caught a glimpse of a basic pistol on the belt of the man closest to her. But Chrystal could handle herself, and if <em> he’d </em> noticed then she would have noticed as well, since Shina could also see that she was watching the two men intensely, hidden behind the tipsy haze over her eyes. She was relaxed, but she wasn’t stupid.</p><p>The man she’d been giving most of her attention to placed his hand on her thigh casually as he said something, and she gave him a small sly smile with the corner of her mouth even as her eyes flashed, giggling at whatever he said and then leaning forward to ask him something. While Shina couldn’t overhear, he had her facial expressions and mannerisms <em> memorised, </em>and he tapped his fingers on the table as he watched whatever it was she was up to as she flirted and played and ended up shuffling closer so the two of them could talk quieter, the second man cut out of the conversation and instead seeming to be happy to pay attention to his drinks.</p><p>When the man’s hand slid further up her leather-clad thigh slightly, she glanced down at it and raised her eyebrows playfully, before her eyes flashed and she locked eyes with them. Leaning in to whisper something into his ear that made his eyes go fiery, Shina watched as the two of them stood, the second man standing as well just to follow them out.</p><p> </p><p>As they made their way to the door, Shina caught Chrystal casually reaching down and tightening the belt of her harness. Swearing, he immediately stood and snatched up his own sword, throwing it over his back and starting to make his way out after her to try and catch whatever it was she was planning. Even by the time he’d exited the tavern and glanced around, trying to catch either sight or sound of where they’d gone, the only signs of their passing was a sudden crunch of impact from a nearby dimly-lit alley, and he swore under his breath again before running the distance and skidding to a step at the entrance, his eyes sharpening to try and catch sight of whatever was happening in the shadowed space between buildings.</p><p>One of the two men, the one who had been drinking more, was already down on the ground with blood trickling from his mouth, while Chrystal had the other up against the wall of the tavern with one of her blades against his throat. Swearing, Shina began to jog down the alley to catch up, overhearing as Chrystal blankly asked questions, her face entirely devoid of any emotion and her eyes cold as ice.</p><p>“Where are they now?”</p><p>“I...I don’t know! Some of us split up.” The man winced, pressing as far back against the wall as he could in order to ease the cutting pressure of the blade against his throat. He clearly didn’t have an aura, making him entirely at Chrystal’s mercy.</p><p>She pressed harder, twitching her wrist only slightly to draw a red line of slight trickling blood from the man’s neck.</p><p>“You’re a terrible liar. Now tell me where they are now. You hear to scout out the town?”</p><p>The man didn’t respond at first, but at a slight press from her he nodded, closing his eyes as he felt the slight trickles of blood from the stinging wound across his neck. She hummed in approval and satisfaction.</p><p>“So where are the rest?”</p><p>“The boss will kill me if I snitch.” The man whimpered, before his eyes widened in fear when Chrystal used her free hand to draw one of her pistols and press it down against his kneecap in a clear message. “Kuroyuri! Thirty miles west of Kuroyuri!”</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal paused in thought for a moment, narrowing her eyes as she drew a map in her head. While Tacita was in charge of directions, they’d all made sure to study the maps as best as they could, and Chrystal could have laughed at the irony.</p><p>“That’s barely a day’s distance from Ywitawa, right? Been camped there a few years now?”</p><p>The man nodded, blinking in confusion at that particular question, and Chrystal finally let herself snort and roll her eyes. “Figures...well, thank you.”</p><p>Letting the man drop, Chrystal backed up a step as if she was willing to let him simply step past and head away, but as the man straightened she instead brought her pistol up and pressed it against the top of his head. But just as her finger began to pull the trigger, a hand caught her wrist and yanked her arm up, and she blinked in surprise as she whipped her head around to stare into the fierce eyes of Shina.<br/>The two of them stared at each other for a few moments, before Shina spoke to the shaken man without moving his eyes from Chrystal.</p><p>“Get out of here. Take your friend.”</p><p>The man rushed to comply, and it was only once they were alone in the alley that Shina released Chrystal’s arm with a shove, his eyes full of an angry disappointment that had Chrystal glare and her eyes narrow even as she slid her gun back into its holster.</p><p> </p><p>“<em> Why stop me? </em> He’s just going to report back now.”</p><p>“We <em> don’t </em>execute people in alleys. That’s not who we are.” His voice was firm, but Chrystal just scoffed in frustration and shook her head.</p><p>“Well maybe it should be. Would fix a lot of problems before they start.”</p><p>Unwilling to even <em> begin </em> that argument, Shina instead crossed his arms, standing directly enough in the middle of the alley she’d have to squeeze past him in order to escape the conversation, but for once she didn’t look as if she had that usual urge. Instead her eyes were angry, and full of her own disappointment in <em> him. </em></p><p>“Shina, we can’t afford to be soft anymore.” Her voice was so laden with certainty that it had something in him clench. “<em> They </em> won’t be. They already aren’t.”</p><p>“That’s...not an excuse to lower to their level.” Shaking his head, his voice was full of just as much certainty as hers. “You’re a trained Huntsmen, they weren’t. They didn’t even have auras. Compared to us they’re basically just upjumped civilians. We’re trained to have restraint for that very reason.”</p><p>“<em> We were trained </em> <b> <em>WRONG!</em> </b> ” Chrystal’s voice rose to a shout, and her fist collided with the wall next to them, her eyes still fixed on Shina. “And because of that we lost <em> everything! </em>”</p><p>“That is <em> not </em>why we lost!” His own voice began to rise, but not to her level, and his eyes hardened into a glare again. “We lost from fear, we lost because we made mistakes, everyone except us were caught by surprise.”</p><p>“And if we or team RWBY had just put a bullet in Torchwick’s head when we had the chance, it could have bought us more time! And he’s just <em> one </em> of a <em> thousand </em>people who we spared that we could have saved lives from by putting into the ground.”</p><p>“Well <b> <em>YOU’RE </em> </b>the one that snuck onto the airship for a chat, he was at your mercy then, so why didn’t you???”</p><p>“Because I was still under the fucking <em> delusion </em> that we could win by being the better people. But we couldn’t. And we <em> didn’t. </em>”</p><p>Chrystal’s fist was still pressed against the wall, and the pressure she was putting onto it to grind it into the timber had her knuckles shimmering slightly with her aura protecting her from harm.</p><p>“You didn’t see the full extent of the damage they did to our home. You didn’t see the aftermath of the bodies lining the streets. <em> They </em>don’t have any depths they won’t sink to.”</p><p>Pausing for a few moments and taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, Shina’s voice was still hard, but there was a note of sympathy in it. “I’ll never know the extent of what you went through during that week, Chrystal. But you’re not still there.”</p><p>“You really don’t get it, do you...” Chrystal looked at him in exasperated disappointment, before sighing. “Yes we are.”</p><p> </p><p>At the sheer level of certainty and simplicity she’d delivered the answer with, Shina wasn’t even sure how to respond at first, simply looking into her completely certain and resigned expression, with so much black ice still in her eyes and anger in her muscles. He let out a deep breath.</p><p>“We all killed during the battle at Beacon. All four of us, and all of our friends. We entered that new dark world together, but that doesn’t mean we have to go back there every time we encounter someone we think might deserve it.”</p><p>“A philosophy of mercy and restraint is how Ozpin handled what happened at Beacon, and we all saw how that ended. When did <em> you </em>start trying to be some benevolent knight of virtue?” </p><p>Looking at him incredulously, Chrystal scoffed, and in response Shina narrowed his eyes before his gaze almost went sad.</p><p>“When did <em> you </em> become <em> this? </em>”</p><p>Narrowing her own eyes, Chrystal’s stance slid to slightly hostile. “You think <em> you </em> can judge <em> me </em> ? You? By the time that night ended you had far more blood on your hands than I did. And the couple dozen people I then killed while escaping that smoldering hell <em> all </em>deserved it. At least I can claim that I’ve only ever killed people that deserved it, unlike you I don’t have civilian lives on my conscience.”</p><p>“That’s not fair. You <em> know </em>that’s not fair.” Shina flinched, but Chrystal shrugged. Her eyes were slightly cloudy, and Shina knew what that meant. What he was potentially walking into. But he wasn’t going to sit back.</p><p>While Shina felt the sting against himself from her bringing up what happened in the village, it didn’t deter him like Chrystal might have been trying.</p><p>“You keep talking about your week escaping Beacon as if it made you some sort of badass, you’ve distanced yourself from us, from <em> me, </em>and you look down on the three of us from this fucking pedestal you’ve given yourself, as if you have some sort of monopoly on the ‘doing what has to be done’ attitude. I know that you suffered and I know that it was hell, but you’re on this high horse because you’re in denial, and that denial is going to get us killed. The ruins of Beacon didn’t make you a badass, Chrystal.”</p><p>Even though Chrystal’s stance tensed in danger and her eyes narrowed, Shina ignored the warning signs as he simply pinned her with a strong sharp look, and he kept his voice clear.</p><p> </p><p>“It made you a <em> victim. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>When her fist collided with his jaw, snapping his head to the side, the blow hard enough and aimed well enough that his aura sparked, he looked back at her and spat out blood from the burst gum that was already healing. As her follow-up swing went for the other side of his jaw he stepped to the side and went to sweep her legs out from under her, unsurprised when she flipped away from it, and he easily caught her incoming foot with both of his hands as she went to drive it into his gut. Adjusting his grip on it in the same smooth motion, he had the freedom to bring an elbow up and then drive it down onto her extended leg hard enough her own aura sparked, and she growled before using the grip he had on her leg as leverage to swing her other foot up and around to collide with his face and send him stumbling away violently, and she easily kept the spin around so she could lighty land on her feet.</p><p>Wiping the back of his hand along his mouth, Shina fixed her with a firm look. “You don’t want to seriously do this, Chrystal. Breathe.”</p><p>“If all Beacon did was make me a victim, how come I can hit you now?” Her voice was edged with razor edges, and the fuzziness was firmly over her mind as she unbuckled her harness and stripped off her jacket, watching as Shina then reluctantly did the same after a pause.</p><p>“I don’t know. I wish I had an answer.” Shaking his head, Shina let out a breath. He didn’t want to do this. But he knew that look in her eyes. “But it didn’t have to make you vicious too.”</p><p>“I started fighting how I had to in order to survive.”</p><p>“Does that sound like the behaviour of someone who got stronger? Or of someone who was suffering?”</p><p> </p><p>Growling in frustration at how his own words were razor-edged but the rest of his tone and stance were calm, she lashed out again only for him to nimbly step aside, but her enhanced speed allowed her to gracefully hop to her other foot and spin kick him in the ribs, but he knocked her incoming foot off-course with one arm before attempting to counter with his own series of kicks, each of which she avoided.</p><p>“We both know you can’t hit me without using your cuts.”</p><p>“I am so tired of you big talking your own goddamn Semblance. And we’re all tired of this ‘tougher than thou’ attitude you’ve had since the battle even though we <em> all </em>walked away with scars.” Shina’s skin paled and the gold in his eyes became more pronounced as he went straight to the second Cut. Immediately Chrystal’s own attacks began missing and more of her dodges were close-calls, Shina’s attempts to grab her starting to get close enough to brush her as she’d twist or spin away.</p><p>Snarling in fog-induced anger, Chrystal pressed her offensive until her foot drove into Shina’s gut and her fist smashed into his jaw again, but as she followed up with another left-hook Shina finally had his opening, and his skin paled further as he finally grabbed her wrist, before using his now Third-Cut enhanced strength to heave her around and slam her into the outer tavern wall with enough force her aura sparked violently and she retched, her arm folded up around her back.</p><p>Pushing him away from her by placing one of her powerful legs against the wall and kicking away, he stumbled off balance and she had the freedom to twist herself free and bounce to readiness on her feet again. </p><p>Shina knew the noise of their scuffle was likely loud enough it would soon draw attention, if it hadn’t already, and he closed the third-cut. He wasn’t going to hurt her, if he did he wouldn’t forgive himself, he just needed to catch her. But she was still simply just too fast, yet while her attacks were now as blindingly fast as her dodging, her technique hadn’t improved enough to be on the same level as her instincts, so she was still sloppy and unrefined compared to his.</p><p>Especially when she was blinded by the fog like she currently was.</p><p>Both of them looked at each other and went to go for each other again when it was suddenly incredibly hard to move, the two of them feeling impossibly heavy as the ground beneath their feet pulsed dark-purple. Both of them were pulled down to their knees heavily enough it hurt.</p><p> </p><p>“<b> <em>That’s enough!</em> </b>”</p><p> </p><p>Stepping into the alley, Kylar had a hand slightly outstretched as he held the gravity well, the chambers of his staff rotating as he held it behind himself and drew in gravity dust. When Shina glanced at him in thanks for the intervention and went to stand, he simply pushed down with his hand further and Shina was pulled down heavier, even his semblance-enhanced strength unable to outmatch the sheer force of the gravity. Chrystal was having an even worse time of it, barely able to support herself on her hands and knees, straining to look up at the other two.</p><p>“Is this really how you’re going to solve this? Really?” Kylar sounded so utterly disappointed in them as he finished approaching them, standing between them and constantly looking back and forth.</p><p>“Kylar, we-”</p><p>“<em> Shut up. </em>”</p><p>Kylar cut Chrystal off with a look, and the pure disappointment in his eyes was enough for her to clam her mouth shut. She could handle disappointment from Shina, because she knew he’d always get over it, but there was a weight to it when it was Kylar or Tacita that always made her feel ashamed, since they’d never <em> ever </em>look at her with it unless she truly deserved it. Keeping his eyes on her, Kylar shook his head.</p><p>“Sorting out your pain with drinking and your fists. You’re reverting to who you were when you first arrived at Beacon, except worse since you’re now willing to kill.”</p><p>“This isn’t about my ‘pain’, Kylar. It’s-”</p><p>“No, it really is. And I get it. But it’s <em> wrong. </em> ” Kylar cut her off again, and when Chrystal went to rise he simply increased the gravity again. “And it’s also hurting the three of <em> us </em>. You need to snap out of it.”</p><p>“I’m not <em> in </em> anything to snap out <em> of </em>.”</p><p>“Then if how you’ve been the past couple of months is just who you are now; this cold-hearted and lethal killer with no warmth...then I can promise you that Petyr would be heartbroken if he saw you again. Because he believed there was so much more to you than the parts you’re hiding behind. In fact he wouldn’t just be heartbroken, he’d be <em> <strong>scared</strong> </em>of you.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes widening, Chrystal opened and closed her mouth a few times as a lump formed in her throat large enough it cut off her ability to talk, and she looked back down at the ground, closing her eyes and taking a few shaky breaths. The loss of Petyr and Cypher had been forbidden topics around their campfires, an unspoken agreement between the four of them, but Tacita had noticed that Chrystal still cried sometimes, and they were tears that always transformed into a black rage that would then quickly freeze to a cruel ice. That same ice still lingered under Chrystal’s skin from the ease with which she’d dealt with the two men, and that had her willing to execute them both just because she was done with them, but it had melted just enough from her anger at Shina that Kylar got through it.</p><p>The sudden thought of Petyr catching her with her gun to a helpless man’s head, and how he might look at her, had her want to throw up right onto the stones of the street.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Kylar turned to Shina, who had taken the opportunity to close his Cuts again. But Kylar didn’t say anything particularly scolding, with no real need to, he simply waited until Shina looked him in the eye before thinning his lips.</p><p>“If you want us to trust that you have your Semblance under your control instead of the other way around, then summoning them against your friends just because of an argument is perhaps the worst way to go about it.”</p><p> </p><p>As Shina held his gaze for only a moment longer than Chrystal managed, before also looking away, Kylar remained quiet for a handful of moments to let them drown in those thoughts before he spoke up again.</p><p>“The four of us have to do this together. I thought the main issue was that we were incapable of working as a unit of four, instead always working as simply two pairs. But if we’ve gone a step further than that and we don’t even work in those pairs anymore, then we might as well give up entirely. And none of us are the quitting type. Not anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking between the two of them a few more times each, Kylar released the gravity well, and both Shina and Chrystal slumped in exhaustion from holding themselves up. Kylar stepped away to turn and leave the alley, but not before saying one last thing.</p><p>“Tacita and I are still going to head to Ywitawa to try and solve this. If you think you can do it as who you <em> really </em>are, we’d need you. You’re our best friends. But if you really think how you both are right now is who you have to be, go home.”</p><p> </p><p>As Kylar vanished from the alley back onto the main street, likely heading back inside the tavern to go to bed for their early morning, Shina and Chrystal both looked at each other while they were still collapsed on their hands and knees, sweet beading on their skin from the sheer strain it had taken to stay up even that far.</p><p>“...you think he’s right?” Shina said quietly, looking down at the ground and grinding his jaw, not yet having the energy to move. While Kylar’s power had always been impressive, he’d <em> never </em>been that strong at Beacon, and he’d looked like it was practically effortless.</p><p>It was easily over a full minute of wiping sweat from his forehead later when he heard Chrystal’s voice, sounding small.</p><p>“...maybe?”</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>“No. Are you?”</p><p>He shrugged dejectedly, his thoughts far away as he thought over all the little things that had happened, things that he’d thought and done, over the past couple of months.</p><p>Chrystal spoke up again a few minutes later.</p><p>“I’m...sorry.”</p><p>“...it’s okay.” He sighed, before looking over at her when she spoke again.</p><p>“Cypher or Petyr wouldn’t think so.”</p><p>“They’d forgive you.”</p><p>“I know. That’s what’s making me feel ill.”</p><p> </p><p>Slowly, Shina rose to his feet, groaning as his muscles protested the movement. Wincing, he rolled his shoulders, before making his way over to Chrystal. She looked up at him without really moving, her eyes heavy and guilty, and he offered his hand for her to take, pulling her to her feet. They both stood there silently for a moment before she tentatively stepped forward.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” She whispered again.</p><p>Sighing, he spoke softly. “Just...come back to us.”</p><p>“I don’t know how.” Chrystal trembled for a moment. “I still don’t even know if I even should. We’re going to have to keep killing people, Shina.”</p><p>“I know. But not that casually. We kill to protect others, to protect ourselves, and we kill those who truly do deserve it.”</p><p>Quietly thinking for a few seconds, Chrystal frowned, and her voice was still helpless. “But...how are we meant to <em> tell </em>who those people are?”</p><p>“...I don’t know. I’m not sure you and I are the best judges for that.” Shina laughed at the end, and Chrystal snorted, shrugging with her head in exhaustion to concede the point</p><p>Shina glanced in the direction Kylar had gone, and hummed in thought as he mulled on the casual power that Kylar had shown.</p><p>Day in and day out, Kylar was working on himself internally, always in thought. And...it was clearly having results. It also occurred to Shina that he had no idea how much larger Tacita’s range might have grown from her constant use of her Semblance during their journey so far, or whether or not she’d managed to astral project again.<br/>...he didn’t know much about how any of his teammates were doing at all.</p><p>But neither of them had let Shina or Chrystal down before. Especially Tacita. So Shina slumped slightly and closed his eyes for a moment.</p><p>Still looking in the direction Kylar had gone, Shina bit the inside of his bottom lip.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we just trust <em> them </em>to know.”</p><p> </p><p>When Chrystal didn’t say anything more, Shina went over to grab his jacket from where he’d taken it off and pulled it back on, zipping it up and throwing his sword back over onto his back as Chrystal pulled her own jacket and harness back on. Both dressed and rearmed, they looked over at each other, not entirely sure how to proceed.</p><p>Chrystal crossed her arms over her chest, but it was insecure instead of defensive, and her eyes were vulnerable. “...you really think I’m still just a victim?” </p><p>“Chrystal…” Walking over quietly, Shina placed his hand on her shoulder. “We’re <em> all </em>victims of the Fall.”</p><p>Seeming to think over it, Chrystal looked down and frowned for a few moments before nodding, biting her bottom lip. “And, are <em> we </em>good?”</p><p>“You going to hit me again?”</p><p>“Only if you deserve it.” Chrystal grinned, and Shina rolled his eyes.</p><p>“Then...yeah. I guess we’re fine.”</p><p>Pausing again before heading anywhere, Chrystal slid her hands into her pockets nervously, still shaken up as her thoughts were still far away, on what Kylar had said, and trying not to think about how much of a point he might have had.<br/>Not until she was alone. </p><p>Yeah...she’d think about it once she was alone. And preferably drunk.</p><p>Some habits didn’t have to change right away.</p><p> </p><p>From up in the room she was staying in for the night, her window overlooking the alley below, Tacita opened her eyes as she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, sighing as the tension finally de-escalated down in the alley below where she had been secretly and invisibly watching from just over Chrystal’s shoulder. She was <em> always </em>watching over Chrystal’s shoulder, these days.</p><p>Ever since she’d figured out how to astral project at will, a secret she hadn’t even told Kylar, she’d spent most of her conscious moments keeping an eye on by far their most unhinged teammate.</p><p>And if she was honest with herself, it had reached a point it was no longer just keeping an eye on her.</p><p>She was the girl’s unofficial warden.</p><p>Taking her bow from where it was laying across her lap, she powered it down again and placed it aside, before finally laying down to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The four of them were even quieter than usual as they set off through the forest the next day, leaving at dawn and planning on travelling until deep into the night to cover as much ground as possible to Ywitawa with each day. What was a four day trip for civilians, they were going to do in three, even though it meant pushing to an exhausting limit. But they had spent a year of training on scouting and recon missions that demanded tiring days of travel.<br/>While Chrystal was the one best suited for it, with nearly endless reserves of energy and a body that was incapable of ending up sluggish and fatigued, Tacita had always been the second best at it despite the amount of energy she was constantly exerting with her Semblance.<br/>Walking quietly, lost in her own thoughts, Tacita kept her bow in her hand just in case of trouble. While they hadn’t encountered much trouble on the roads between each village and town, something felt ‘off’ that day, and it had her and her alone on edge, as if she was the only one capable of feeling it in the air.</p><p>Every time Kylar looked at her in concern and reached out to either comfort her or reassure her, she would only give small smiles of acknowledgement before returning to keeping an eye on their surroundings, <em> waiting </em> for the threat to appear.<br/>It was just after noon when it arrived, the movement entering just the edge of her awareness hidden in the trees up ahead, and at the click of her bow powering up her three teammates all armed themselves at the ready.</p><p>Stretching her Semblance to focus on the road ahead, she swept over the two trucks parked on the edge of a small clearing, and blinked in surprise at the sight of figures in the masks of the White Fang. An ambush, and a well placed one.</p><p>It wasn’t their fault she was impossible to sneak up on, and she took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she nodded to the others.</p><p> </p><p>“White Fang. Twenty of them maybe. Well armed.”</p><p>“Out here??” Chrystal blinked, looking into the trees ahead as if expecting to see them lying in wait. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”</p><p>“I’m not sure either. But...something feels wrong.” Biting the inside of her bottom lip, Tacita gripped her bow slightly tighter as Shina frowned next to her.</p><p>“Let’s not make the worst assumptions straight away. It’s not impossible they’ll let us pass by, and it’s not impossible that if they don’t we can’t just talk our way through.”</p><p>Chrystal muttered under her breath, and Tacita picked up the word ‘optimism’, and she couldn’t help but think she might have a point this time. No White Fang headquarters were anywhere nearby, and the villages and towns they’d passed through hadn’t mentioned White Fang causing any sorts of trouble.</p><p>Humming in thought, Shina rolled his shoulders. “Normal plan, I guess. Tacita, Chrystal, you two vanish. Kylar and I will go and have a chat I suppose.”</p><p>The two girls nodded, and while Tacita immediately vanished into the undergrowth, drawing a grappling arrow in order to zip up into the trees, Chrystal was stopped by Kylar before she darted away. Raising her eyebrows at him, she paused halfway through a step, and he spun one of the chambers of his staff before drawing in some gravity, air and electric dust.</p><p>“Here, hold it in until you need it, but it’ll come in handy if things kick off.”</p><p> </p><p>Placing his hand on her chest, Kylar flowed the dust into her and infused her, and Chrystal felt the swirling power of the dust sink into her aura, feeling herself get lighter and her muscles get more responsive.<br/>Grinning at the sense of freedom, she gave the two boys a nod, and winked at Kylar in thanks.</p><p>“I’ll try not to finish things before you two get a chance to show off, then.”</p><p>With her muscles and aura boosted, Chrystal was far lighter due to the gravity dust, and faster due to the air and lightning, and she vanished into the tops of the trees in a blur. Shina raised his eyebrows and glanced at Kylar even as he drew his sword in preparation for the worst.</p><p>“You couldn’t have ever done that before now?”</p><p>“Her aura is delicate to infuse. I wasn’t finessed enough before now.” Explaining with a shrug, Kylar glanced at Shina before starting to continue down the road to head right into the clearing, Shina right by his side.</p><p> </p><p>As Chrystal vanished like a silent ghost into the branches, and the two boys made their way down the road as casually as possible while still being at the ready, Tacita took her place in the branches of a tree overlooking the clearing, and had her breathing slowed and under control as she counted where each member of the White Fang was hiding, memorising the potential battlefield and prioritising. Drawing an explosive fire arrow and nocking it, but still resting her bow across her lap.</p><p>Every waiting White Fang tensed when Shina and Kylar entered the clearing, and Tacita softly ran her fingertips along the bowstring, trusting her teammates. Chrystal nearby seemed focused, thankfully. The gravity dust in her system was grounding her emotions, and Tacita didn’t doubt for a moment that Kylar had done it on purpose.</p><p>Noticing as White Fang began to look between each other, she focused.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “That’s only two of them, where are the two girls?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Who knows. The blonde boy is the problem. The less of them we have to deal with, the better I guess.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Sister Unagi wanted the archer.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “She’ll get over it.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Narrowing her eyes as she moved her Semblance away from that particular conversation, she swept her eyes over the ambushers in search for whoever ‘Sister Unagi’ might be, and her focus landed on one of the only two members who weren’t wearing the traditional mask. A man and a woman, looking to be in their mid-twenties. One, the woman, was some sort of serpent or eel faunus, while the man had the fangs and claws of a wolf, with black ears.</p><p>Keeping her focus on the larger number of ambushers and trusting Shina and Kylar with the two leaders, Tacita slid her fingers to the right position in preparation to draw. This was clearly only going to go the one way.</p><p>With the makeshift weapons the White Fang had, how skittish they looked, the poor level of physical strength some of them were in...they weren’t fighters. And clearly maybe only four or five of them had an awakened aura.</p><p>This was going to be quick, and Tacita wasn’t sure how to feel about it as her fingers were softly brushed by the feathers on her arrow.</p><p> </p><p>The stories she’d read as a kid had always exaggerated just how much stronger the heroes were than average people, seeming larger than life in their power and heroics. At least, she’d assumed they were exaggerated, but once her aura had been awakened and she’d begun her training she’d discovered the reality that the difference in power really was that wide. To such a degree that she didn’t doubt that Shina and Chrystal could handle this entire crowd on their own if they wanted to.</p><p>Ten-to-one odds, between those without aura and trained Huntsmen, were still even only barely fair odds. For <em> any </em>Huntsman.</p><p>The streets of Beacon had been thick with bodies for a reason.</p><p> </p><p>Reading those stories as a child, she’d also wondered how it was that the villains had the power to be capable of such destruction on a large scale. How a handful of supervillains could threaten a kingdom, or a whole world. It had seemed otherworldly and absurd. But she’d learned the reality on that one as well, and she’d carry the thick scars across her torso for the rest of her life.<br/>The negotiations between Shina and Kylar, and the two leaders of the White Fang, were clearly about to end in the inevitable violence that Tacita had resigned to, with Sister Unagi already twitching her hands towards the swords she had on her hips, and the chambers of Kylar’s staff were rotating slowly.</p><p>Hidden in the treetops nearby, Chrystal was tense and ready, and Tacita knew that the moment the tension broke and things began the girl would be a blur, and it was Tacita’s role to cover her just like it was Kylar’s to support and boost Shina.</p><p>Slowing down her breathing in order to control her heartrate, so that her aim was more accurate, she rose to a crouch and drew the string back on her bow, aiming it directly at the neck of one of the White Fang on the far side of the clearing, able to get a clear shot through the windows of the truck he was crouched behind. Rotating a dial on her bow with her thumb, she felt the tension of her bow increase as she raised the poundage to increase its penetration power.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Brother Adam would want you alive, blondie.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The moment Sister Unagi moved for Shina, her blades flying out of her sheaths and clashing with Shina’s parry, Tacita released her arrow, her hand going back to her quiver to draw her next arrow before her first had even smashed through the truck window, the arrow piercing through the man’s neck and going out the other side. As the fire arrow went straight through the man and dug into the trunk of the tree on the other side of him, the dust then detonated, and two of the other men that had been crouched behind the truck were incinerated.<br/>Drawing a gravity arrow, Tacita shifted her attention to the other truck and fired, the arrow sticking into the side of the truck and activated, the pulsing force of gravity, flipping the truck and causing it to land on the faunus crouched behind it, crushing them. A follow-up arrow, an ordinary metal one, stuck into the soft flesh between the neck and shoulder of the one man to have rolled out of the way in time.</p><p>Just like before, she’d drawn her next arrow before the previous one had hit its target, knowing her aim was true, and she simply kept firing, releasing targeted arrows of different dust that almost never only killed the one target. Explosions of fire, ice to freeze targets still for Chrystal to slice through, air arrows that sent White Fang sprawling, every single shot resulted in the deaths of more than one target at a time.</p><p>She didn’t lose track of a single target, she was incapable of it, and when one of the White Fang broke and sprinted for the trees, fleeing from the fight, she simply drew another standard arrow and aimed. The arrow shot across the clearing and into the trees, navigating perfectly through branches and leaves until it pierced straight into the back of the man, and he was dead before he hit the ground.</p><p> </p><p>It was over in a matter of minutes, and she glanced over as Shina’s blade pierced straight through the chest of Sister Unagi, before he drew it out and swung it in the one graceful movement to remove her head, just as Chrystal kicked the legs of the wolf faunus out from underneath him and put a bullet into his chest as he hit the ground.<br/>The clearing was silent, and she knew they were all dealt with. None had escaped, not with her watching the treeline, and she dropped down from the branches and landed easily on the ground, her expression calm as she deactivated her quiver. When the others noticed she’d dropped down into the open, they each relaxed, the four of them grouping up in the center of the clearing.</p><p>Shina took a cloth from a pouch on his belt and wiped the blood from his blade, his face in the same calm mask he always wore in battle. With Kylar boosting him with dust, he hadn’t needed to open any of his cuts at all, and even Chrystal seemed entirely calm as she sheathed the blade in her right hand even as she kept her gun out in her left. Tacita didn’t entirely trust it, so she reached out with a hand and placed it on Chrystal’s arm.</p><p>The girl looked to her and gave a small smile, and there was a genuine relaxation in it that reassured Tacita enough she smiled back.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that everyone?” Shina sheathed his blade on his back and looked to Tacita, who nodded, and he sighed. Chrystal looked around at the carnage.</p><p>“What did they want?”</p><p>Kylar’s answer was quiet. “...us…”</p><p>“...what?...” Chrystal’s eyes widened slightly, her mouth slipping open in confusion, and Shina shook his head.</p><p>“They know we’re alive. And they know we’re in Mistral. They wanted to kill us….for Adam.”</p><p> </p><p>At the mention of Adam, Chrystal sucked in a breath as a shiver of panic went through her, and Tacita quickly reached out to take her hand as a whimper escaped Chrystal’s throat before she could swallow it, and the girl looked away.</p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, Shina then had to voice the unspoken obvious. “If Adam knows we’re here there’s a chance Salem and Cinder do as well.”</p><p>“Think they’ll suspect what we’re doing?” Tacita squeezed Chrystal’s hand even as she looked to Shina, who let out an unsure breath.</p><p>“We’re on the road to Haven.” He shook his head helplessly. “Even if they just assume we’re heading for the vault, or just Haven in general...that’s still a target on our back. Every White Fang camp between here and Haven know we’re on our way. They’ll be waiting.”</p><p>The four of them stood silently for a moment as they each considered it, before eventually Chrystal was the one to break the silence, squeezing Tacita’s hand before letting it go and sliding her pistol back into its holster so she could put her hands into her pockets.</p><p>“...this isn’t going to be the last attempt on our lives, isn’t it…”</p><p>It wasn’t a question, it was a resignation, and Shina shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>As the other three discussed it, Tacita released Chrystal’s hand and looked around the clearing and the nearby treeline with her Semblance. The four of them had just killed twenty-three people. While the two leaders might have been genuine threats, twenty-one of them had been simply radicalised civilians fighting for a cause they weren’t prepared for.<br/>None of these people had been at Beacon, she was willing to bet anything on that. But they’d been sent after the four of them anyway.</p><p>Closing her eyes, she shook her head dejectedly.<br/>If they kept having to kill people who could barely defend themselves, even though they were trying to kill <em> them, </em> she was going to start to feel like a murderer.</p><p> </p><p>As the others came to the inevitable conclusion that this wasn’t going to be the last ambush between them and the goal, Tacita returned to the conversation just in time for the others to prepare to keep moving, and she nodded when her name was spoken even as she was too distracted to hear the rest of the words. Kylar took her free hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, and she gave him a small smile even as the four of them simply kept walking on their way.</p><p>They’d been tempted to take one of the trucks, but the trails they were going to need to travel were too small once they left the main roads. So, on foot they would continue.</p><p>As they left the clearing of bodies behind them, each of them trying their best to banish the thought of it from their minds, Tacita was forced to see the carnage they’d caused far longer than the other three were aware of it. It burned itself into her memory. And it wouldn’t be the last.</p><p>She didn’t speak a word for the rest of the day and night.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The arrival in Ywitawa three days later wasn’t met with joy, it was met with a great wash of relief.</p><p>It was a large town, with strong walls, and the moment they were inside of them the four of them felt something inside unclench and relax for the first time since they’d left Patch.</p><p> </p><p>While it wasn’t safe to let their guards down entirely, they were at least able to walk without their weapons in their hands as they booked rooms at the largest tavern and dropped off their belongings. They had no way of knowing just how long they were going to be staying, or even what they were really going to be looking for. But even if they did have to move on, they’d agreed that taking a couple of days to rest and recover before the next leg of their journey would do them the world of good.<br/>Ywitawa was large enough to have a weaponsmith, and the first thing Tacita did upon emerging from the tavern was immediately head to commission some more of her metal arrowheads to be forged, and the man had guaranteed that two dozen would be ready by the next afternoon. Dust arrowheads she could craft on her own, she’d been doing it for years, but the metal ones needed to be forged, and it wasn’t like she could use the Beacon workshops to do it herself anymore.</p><p>It was a loud and busy enough town that it was jarring to her after months of wilderness and quiet villages, and she quickly found herself with a headache from all the commotion and stimulus constantly around her and swarming into her brain, even if she retracted her Semblance as closely as she could to her body it still wasn’t enough.</p><p>They began to liven up again once they were eating a late lunch and getting good food into them, and even Kylar was perking up a bit after he ate and let the warmth enter his body from it, sighing and sitting back in his chair in the large tavern dining room. Tacita placed her hand on his leg underneath the table and gave him a smile, always feeling a small buzz of happiness whenever her normally incredibly intense and serious boyfriend unwound even slightly.</p><p>Meanwhile Chrystal was humming happily to herself as she finished the last of her noodles, slurping rather unceremoniously and earning her a scolding glare from Kylar which she merely smirked at and otherwise ignored. Finishing her bowl and giving a large sigh of satisfaction, she placed it down and slumped back in her own chair.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what’s the plan now that we’re here?”</p><p>“If Rowena really has gone rogue...I’d like to figure out how that happened.” Shina was frowning as he thought over it, using his fork to roll the last of his boiled eggs around the plate. “Huntsmen and Huntresses don’t just go rogue overnight.”</p><p>Humming in agreement, Tacita reached over to Kylar’s plate and snatched up the last of his cherry tomatoes. “True. So where do we start?”</p><p>“Well, she was from here. What if she still has family?” Kylar offered as he reached over and stabbed his own fork into Shina’s egg to stop him playing with his food. Narrowing his eyes, Shina stabbed the egg as well, and when Kylar removed his fork Shina took a bite.</p><p>“They shouldn’t be too hard to find. Apart from the fact we don’t know her last name.”<br/>“She’s a missing person, people will know where to point us.” Kylar placed his fork back down on his plate, before drumming his fingers on the table. “We construct a timeline. Talking to family, checking out her house...we’ve trained for this sort of thing. Mostly.”</p><p>Humming in thought, Chrystal glanced around the tavern and clicked her tongue, before a small playful smile touched the corners of her mouth. “I can probably find the right people to ask for any gossip on the bandit tribe itself.”</p><p>“...define <em> ‘the right people’ </em>.” Kylar gave her a deadpan look, and she simply smirked.</p><p>Laughing for a moment, Tacita nodded in approval, before speaking up. “I’ll check out her house.”</p><p>“I guess that means I’m speaking to her family.” Nodding in agreement, Kylar then glanced to Shina with raised eyebrows. “You should come too.”</p><p>“Why do you reckon?”</p><p>“Apart from you being our team leader, honest answer?...” Kylar sighed, and winced as he swallowed his pride a bit. “You’re a better people person than I am, and there doesn’t seem to be a gentle way to ask why someone’s relative is now killing people.”</p><p> </p><p>Raising his eyebrows, Shina stared at Kylar’s scrunched up face for a few moments, just to drag it out and torture him, before smirking and nodding. “Alright, that’s fair. So we have a plan; Chrystal, go do your thing, just don’t do anything too reckless. Tacita, find her house and check it out. And I guess me and Kylar are going to talk to her family.”</p><p>Looking around at everyone’s finished plates and being disappointed there were no scraps left for her to pilfer, Chrystal nodded and drummed her hands on the table in satisfaction. There was a deep buzz of anxiety in her gut, and she was itching to do things <em> her </em>way, knowing she’d be far more comfortable bar diving to find the info-brokers than she would be poking around someone’s house or questioning family. After months on the road, she was more than a little desperate to return to her world.</p><p>So she stood, finishing her drink as she did so, and the others followed her lead.</p><p>“See y’all tonight. Have fun!” Chrystal grinned encouragingly at Kylar and Tacita, and placed her hand on Shina’s arm reassuringly as she passed.</p><p> </p><p>Kissing Kylar on the cheek softly, Tacita smiled at them both before heading out as well, likely to go talk to the mayor’s office and get an address. If any of them could smooth talk their way into getting private information, it was the girls, but they both preferred to do it in their own ways. Meanwhile Kylar and Shina looked to each other and raised their eyebrows, before Shina shrugged and led the way out.<br/>It took a bit of asking around, but eventually they got a name and address for the remaining family of Rowena Umber.<br/>What was potentially going to make it particularly hard, was it was her grandparents.</p><p>Standing outside of the quaint cottage they’d been directed to, the two boys glanced at each other before Shina simply let out a breath he’d been holding for long enough he was dizzy, and knocked on the door. A few moments later, it was opened by one of the thinnest and most delicate looking old women that either of them had ever seen. A face comprised entirely of laugh lines, wrinkles from a life working in the sun, and large brown eyes, she gave them both a large friendly smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Good afternoon boys, how can I help you?”</p><p>“Good afternoon ma’am, are you perhaps Reila Umber?” Shina gave as friendly a smile as he could manage, and the woman’s eyes glimmered at it as she smiled wider.</p><p>“I am indeed, son. You’re a long way from home with that Vale accent, what brings you to my doorstep?”</p><p>Kylar stepped forward to be right at Shina’s side, his hands folded behind his back, and he gave a careful and almost apologetic smile of his own. “We’re looking for Rowena, but we’ve heard she vanished some years ago.”</p><p>Reila didn’t answer at first, she simply squinted as she took in Kylar’s appearance, and let out a quiet but drawn-out hum. She was quiet for the longest time as she squinted at him, long enough that both boys glanced at each other, before Reila suddenly let out a loud noise of realisation and she snapped her fingers.</p><p>“Aha! You <em> must </em>be Logan and Tesse’s boy! Kage, right? Kyle?”</p><p>“Kylar, ma’am.” Even as Kylar answered he had to elbow Shina in the ribs to stop the other boy from smirking and cackling at the ammunition he’d just been given. Kylar smiled. “I look that much like my parents?”</p><p>“Almost the spitting image of your father at your age, though he was much broader of course. And you speak like Tesse. Gentle and polite girl. That was a long time ago now, last I heard you were just a child. Has it really been so long? Please, come in come in.” Reila stepped aside and beckoned them in, smiling widely as she closed the door behind them and gestured for them to take a seat in the comfortable living room. “My husband is still out working I’m afraid, but I’m not so decrepit I am incapable of entertaining visitors. Tea? Coffee?”</p><p>“No thank you, ma’am. We just came from lunch.” Kylar took his staff from where it was strapped to his back, and leant it against the wall, Shina placing his sword right next to it.</p><p> </p><p>Nodding with another smile, Reila sighed in relief as she sank down into one of the armchairs in the room, the one that was clearly her favourite, and took the weight off her legs. “Well now, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a Goroesi in my house. And with that blonde hair and those gold eyes, <em> you </em> must be <em> Brex’s </em>boy.”</p><p>Blinking in surprise, Shina’s mouth dropped open slightly for a few moments. “...you knew <em> my </em>dad too?”</p><p>“We met only briefly a handful of times, oh there was a jumble of Huntsmen teams who worked together back in those days. Very stern man, very intense. Not prone to such a charming smile like you are.”</p><p>“...sounds like him.” Shina muttered, his eye twitching, and Kylar had to nudge him to get him to put his charm face back on. Shina immediately smiled. “I’m Shina Kamisari, yes. And so I suppose it’s our generation’s turn now to be in town.”</p><p>“And you are of course more than welcome! Now then….” Reila’s face suddenly dropped serious, and she folded her hands on her lap, a frown appearing on her face. “This is about Rowena?...”</p><p>“Yes ma’am. She fell out of contact with Ozpin and my parents some years ago, and they’ve grown worried enough our team has been sent to check on her.” Kylar nodded, before glancing over to Shina for him to take over, and Shina sighed before leaning forward.</p><p>“If you’ve had a lot of interactions with Kylar’s parents, I’m going to safely assume you’re aware of your granddaughter's unique situation. Her falling out of contact, given what just happened at Beacon, is...it has people worried.”</p><p> </p><p>Reila was quiet for quite a few moments yet again as she tapped her hands together, nodding slowly in understanding as her eyes went sad. “Yes, my husband and I are aware. As were her parents, until...well, until they lost their lives on a mission.”</p><p>“I’m so sorry.” Shina frowned, thinning his lips. “How long ago was this?”</p><p>“Rowena had only been the Maiden for maybe a year. It shook her up greatly, as it would anybody. She could never shake the belief it was her fault, for being the Maiden.” Reila sighed and shook her head sadly. “She tried to give up being a Huntress entirely.”</p><p>Both boys glanced at each other in surprise at the information, and Kylar’s mind went into overdrive as he constructed a timeline, meanwhile Shina looked back to Reila as he sat up slightly and tapped his hands on his knees in thought.</p><p>He bit the inside of his bottom lip.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know where she is, ma’am?”</p><p>Reila’s face went tragically sad, and she closed her eyes for a few moments to center herself before shaking her head. “She lived a handful of miles outside of town, and one day she simply just didn’t come in for her usual orders at the market. We never saw or heard from her again…”</p><p>“Damn.” Shina sighed, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry, ma’am. This was three years ago?”</p><p>Reila nodded, letting out a sad sigh and her face growing sadder. “No word at all. But you don’t believe she’s truly gone?”</p><p>“We’re hoping not, ma’am. We're scouting and tracking specialists. If she's alive, we'll find her.”</p><p>Mulling over it quietly for a few moments, Reila slowly stood. “One moment, please. I just have to grab something then.”</p><p> </p><p>As Reila shuffled out of the room, the two boys turned to each other in their seats and took the spare moment to talk, Kylar letting out a stressed breath.</p><p>“So she’s truly missing, not confirmed dead.”</p><p>When Shina didn’t respond right away, his eyes far away and a light frown on his face, Kylar nudged him to get his attention. “What’s going on?”</p><p>Quiet for a second, Shina’s voice was carefully blank and quiet. “Just thinking about my dad.”</p><p>“Yeah, that was a bit...surprising. That she knew him?”</p><p>“That he might be in on the secret. That he might have known all along.”</p><p> </p><p>The thought was a strangely sobering one for Shina, who found himself glancing over at his sword and then down at his gloved hands. For the first time in a couple of years, he found that he suddenly badly wanted to speak to his father. To sit the man down and pull every bit of truth out of him, out of everything Shina hadn’t been told.<br/>Had his father been drawn into it because of the Kamisari curse? Or had he volunteered?</p><p>Not only that, but his father had never ever actually told Shina what had happened that killed his team and injured his back. But it had given him lifelong nightmares. Nightmares of <em> ‘a hell worse than any grimm’ </em>.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Dad, what happened to you?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Kylar let Shina sink into his thoughts, shadows appearing in the gold of his friend’s eyes. The three others of the team knew that Shina’s relationship with his father was complicated, and Chrystal had made it very clear to Kylar and Tacita not to approach it. But all it took was watching Shina fight in order to see the marks of what his father had left on him. Kylar and Tacita fought like Huntsmen, Chrystal fought like some sort of assassin, but Shina simply fought like a cold and dispassionate killer.<br/>All efficiency and lethality, no wasted movement.</p><p>It was a level of skill and focus achieved only through gruelling training, the sort of training where you hate yourself for doing it and you never forgive yourself for it afterwards because of what it does to you. And that was how he had arrived at Beacon, only to continue to grow stronger. Even without use of his Semblance he had been in the top five in the Academy, and once he had started using the first cut was when he had ascended to second rank.</p><p>But the reason he’d had trouble consistently beating Pyrrha was ruthless and simple; because he wasn’t allowed to kill her. The cold and lethal efficiency that made him unbeatable by Grimm or human opponent alike was forbidden in a sparring arena,</p><p>And while other Huntsmen were trained to incapacitate and disable opponents, Shina had been trained by his father only to master the kill.</p><p>It was a key weakness as a Huntsman.</p><p>But the western courtyard of Beacon had been littered with White Fang and mercenary bodies. Shina and Chrystal had held it all on their own.</p><p> </p><p>Kylar stared at his friend as Shina was lost in thoughts, and he couldn’t help but see all of that in the sharp features of Shina’s jawline and how in certain light his golden eyes almost looked slitted and predatory, only for it to be an optical illusion.<br/>They both snapped out of their thoughts when Reila returned, carrying a lockbox in her hands that she set down onto the coffee table. Sinking back down into her seat, she groaned in relief once again at the weight being taken off her feet, and gave the two boys a grim smile.</p><p>“Rowena was always nervous about her home being so vulnerable, so she always kept a few of her more secret and important belongings with us. If you’re going to try to find her, if you truly believe she’s still alive, I believe you may need this.”</p><p>Frowning, Kylar sat forward and picked up the lockbox, noting the weight of whatever was inside of it, before frowning deeper at the lack of a keyhole. When his eyes flicked up to Reila in question, she gave an understanding look and gestured to it.</p><p>“That box was designed by your father. He said it can only be opened by someone <em> ‘whose aura touches every part of their heart.’ </em>, whatever that means. Your father was never very straightforward.”</p><p>Snorting in agreement, Kylar nodded before looking down at the box again, before his heart stopped for a moment and his eyes narrowed in annoyance as he thought of his own parents. A strange hum went through his skin as he looked down at the box and thought of his father. He didn’t like being manipulated or influenced.</p><p>“They expected I’d get this from the start.” A small shimmer of rage went through his skin and he clenched his jaw for a moment as she stared down at the box. “...they knew I was always going to end up here. Ever since I was a kid.”</p><p> </p><p>Both Reila and Shina looked at him in surprise, neither of them saying a word as Kylar reached over and grabbed his staff, rotating the compartments and drawing in small amounts of every type of dust. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he gently and carefully mixed each type of dust together into a mixed and gently stable cloud along his entire aura, each dust held in balance by each of the others.<br/>It was a feat he wouldn’t have been able to so easily achieve three months ago. But he’d been doing nothing but focusing on attuning to different dusts ever since the first time he’s transmuted water dust.</p><p>Coating the aura over his hand in the mixed fog, he placed it on the lid of the lockbox and wasn’t surprised when the lid clicked open. Smiling and shaking his head in a mixture of frustration and amazement, he allowed the remaining dust energy in his aura to harmlessly dissipate as he opened the box.</p><p>Reaching inside, he pulled out a bundle wrapped in a protective cloth, and he frowned in curiosity while Shina watched in fascination, and Reila watched expectantly, her hands folded on her lap.</p><p>Placing the lockbox aside, he rested the bundle on his lap and unwrapped it slowly and carefully, and it revealed a large and thick book, yellowed and tattered. It could easily have been five hundred pages, with dozens of additions and slips of paper added throughout, a journal, with a rich purple cover emblazoned with the symbol of a blank theatre mask.</p><p>While Kylar simply looked at it curiously, Shina frowned as the symbol struck a chord in his memory, but he didn’t quite catch the memory before it vanished again.</p><p>Kylar glanced over at Shina, a question in his eyes, and Shina shrugged to put the decision in Kylar’s hands as he shuffled closer to get a better view as Kylar carefully and gently opened the tattered purple cover. The title page was written elegantly in black ink script, clearly someone’s personal handwriting;</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘The Compendium of Kaskol Liseran of Team BLLD.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>When Shina sucked in a breath next to him, Kylar looked over, a suspicion already on his mind about his friend’s reaction, and Shina let out a shocked overwhelmed whisper, his golden eyes swirling with clouds of confused and unstable shadow.</p><p>“...BLLD. Team Blood. My father’s team.”</p><p>"You're shitting me."</p><p>"No. I've seen that symbol before. I'm certain."</p><p>As the two boys stared at each other in complete shutdown shock for over a solid minute, Reila spoke up with a gentle voice.</p><p>“Take it with you, boys. I’ve not read it, obviously. But if it was important enough your father sealed it up and Rowena left it here, it might just help you. Please find my granddaughter.”</p><p>At her voice, both boys looked to her, and Shina nodded confidently.</p><p>“We will, ma’am. I promise.”</p><p>Nodding as well, Kylar smiled at Reila for a moment before his face went serious, and he wrapped up the book before returning it to the lockbox and clicking it closed and locked. “Let’s... go wait for the others. Yeah?”</p><p>“...yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>The two boys stood, Kylar holding the lockbox under his arm, and Reila rose as well to open the front door for them, and she gave them both a sad but optimistic look as they paused in the doorway.</p><p>“Be careful, boys. You’ve been sent on a perilous road, one that cost both your parents so much. I pray it goes better this time around.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The small cottage, tucked away in the trees a couple of miles outside of the town limits, was in a strange state of limbo. It was clear to Tacita’s sharp senses that nothing had been touched in years, but nothing had deteriorated or decayed yet either. Making her way across the small clearing to look at the house up close, she raised an eyebrow in curiosity at the strange air around the place.</p><p>Humming in curiosity, she blinked a few times as her wide range of sight took in dust and pollen particles suspended in the air, unmoving, unnaturally frozen in place. A small fascinated smile appeared in the corner of her mouth, and she raised a hand to swipe through the air and catch some of the particles on her skin, studying them closely.</p><p>Just regular forest dust.</p><p> </p><p>Stepping into the boundary of the strange air, she felt an unusual chill go over her body as she entered a space where no breeze blew. Every single one of her senses was suddenly haywire as everything was suddenly <em> wrong </em>, and she flinched, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head violently. Taking a few moments to adjust to the unusual stimulus, she blinked her eyes open a few times and relaxed, before studying everything that was wrong.</p><p>There was no breeze, no movement of air at all. In fact there wasn’t any sound apart from the sound <em> she </em>made, with the ambient sounds of the forest completely vanishing. But what really scrambled the calibration of her senses was the smell. There wasn’t any. There wasn’t a single scent in the air, it was simply empty.</p><p><em> Everything </em>had a scent. Everything. But not here. It was an alien feeling, to be aware of the lack of a something that existed everywhere.</p><p> </p><p>Letting out a breath, she shook her head again to clear it and took another tentative step to the front porch, and she cautiously placed her hand on the railing and hopped up, noting the complete lack of any decay or deterioration on any of the wood or paint, and she bit the inside of her cheek before studying the front door itself. It seemed to be intact, with no deterioration or damage, but it <em> was </em>slightly ajar. Open.</p><p>Clicking her bow to release it into its sword form, due to how close quarters it was going to be inside, she sheathed one of the swords in her belt and kept the other in her hand, before using her free hand to slowly and carefully push the door open, and she stepped inside.</p><p>Just like outside, the inside was completely preserved, as if locked in a bizarre sensory stasis, without a speck of dust, no cobwebs, nothing at all to signify it had been abandoned for a few years. Closing the door behind her, she expanded her Semblance as much as she could, sending out a pulse throughout the entire house and checking every room, every inch of the building. There wasn’t a single sound or sign of movement, not a single living being, and she relaxed slightly before sheathing her sword on her other hip.</p><p>It was a simple cottage, kept neat and tidy, but a woman who enjoyed books and the quiet pleasures in life. Tacita ran a hand along one of the bookcases as she made her way through the living room, studying the titles she passed by. Books of fairytales and old stories, a few religious texts of some of the different faiths that could be found, but mostly fictions from all across the world. Smiling slightly whenever she saw a book she herself had read, she felt herself understanding Rowena a little bit as she looked up at the walls, and the pictures that could be found dotted around the house.</p><p>Most were pieces of art, purchased or found in her travels as a Huntress, but a few photographs remained on shelves and counters, and she made sure to take a careful and respectful look at each one of them.<br/>Rowena had been young. Not even a decade older than her. There were photos of her and her original team during their time as students, a graduation photo, photos of different friends, of her in exotic places with her team during their missions.</p><p> </p><p>She was just...a girl.</p><p> </p><p>Placing down a framed photograph of Rowena and two people who were clearly her parents, Tacita looked around the dining room and kitchen she had found herself in. Everything was completely just...it was like a time capsule. Nothing had deteriorated or changed. With a strange hunch in mind, she checked the kitchen cupboards, and wasn’t surprised to find food and ingredients that had been left behind.<br/>She also wasn’t surprised to discover they hadn’t rotted away, even when she checked the best-before dates on some things and they’d expired three years ago, and yet still looked completely fresh. Even a bag of apples was still fresh.</p><p>Rowena had been eating apples in a couple of the photographs. <br/>She liked red ones.<br/>Tacita preferred green.</p><p>Placing the food away again, for some reason following the instinct to pack it back up and return it to the cupboards where she found it, despite the reality that it really didn’t matter if she left it out or messy, she looked around the tidy space before finally heading over to the stairs and heading up.</p><p>The small study was more bookcases, each filled to bursting, but unlike the fictions and more playful texts found in the living room, the books to be found in the study were histories, encyclopedias, and scientific journals, things to be perused. The desk and comfortable looking chair were in slight disarray, with the chair pushed back as if Rowena had recently stood in a hurry and hadn’t taken the moment to push her chair back in. And from the immaculate and neat state of the rest of the house, that was out of character for the profile Tacita had been constructing in her mind.</p><p>Frowning at it, she made her way over to the desk and looked down at the book Rowena had most recently been reading, and the papers she’d been taking notes in, still laid out with the pen dropped onto them in Rowena’s hurry. The book itself was a simple history of Remnant, particularly of the city of Haven. The notes she’d been taking had been about what was apparently a massive network of caves and caverns inside of the mountain that Haven was built onto.</p><p>...Tacita narrowed her eyes, before carefully folding up the pages of Rowena’s notes, placing them in the book which she then closed and slid into her own bag to properly study and try and interpret later.<br/>From everything she’d put together, Rowena was clever, neat, and...playful, was the best word she could think of. She was a young adventurer, she liked travelling, more a scholar like  Professor Oobleck than a Huntsman who fought Grimm. And yet she’d ended up the Spring Maiden. She felt a lurch of sympathy in her chest for the girl.</p><p> </p><p>But what had made her get up in such a hurry?</p><p> </p><p>Standing where Rowena would have been sitting, Tacita looked around the room to see if it was something she might have seen, but apart from the door out into the hallway there was only the window that gave a view of the sky. Making her way over to the window, she looked around it, unsure what she was even looking for. It provided a view into the treeline, but being on the second story Rowena wouldn’t have been able to see anyone emerging from the trees unless she had a sensory Semblance like Tacita did. Studying the window itself, Tacita blinked at something out of place, and she finally noticed the window itself was unlocked. Sliding the window open, she plucked up the feather that had been resting on the windowsill. A black feather, clearly that of a raven. Humming in thought, Tacita slid the window closed again and turned away from it, spinning the feather around between her fingers.</p><p>Quickly making her way over to the bookshelves, she had a hunch that Rowena might have <em> just </em>been as nerdy as her enough to have the right book she needed, or at the very least something close, and she smiled in satisfaction and growing fondness for the girl when she found a basic book on ornithology. Pulling it out, she laid it on the desk and skimmed through it until she found the section on corvids.</p><p>Reading the passages quickly and studying the feather, she narrowed her eyes in thought. Corvids weren’t native to south-western Anima. A raven had no purpose being here.<br/>Had Rowena seen it land on her windowsill?<br/>Why would <em>that</em> cause her to rush or panic?</p><p> </p><p>Placing the feather between the pages of the book, and sliding that book into her bag as well alongside the one from Rowena’s desk, Tacita bit the inside of her cheek in thought. Apart from whatever it was causing the house to be in almost a form of stasis, which very well might be a result of Rowena’s Maiden powers, or even her Semblance, Tacita felt satisfied that she’d found whatever might be significant inside the house itself. So she opened her Semblance as much as possible, to the point her aura strained, and followed the faint signs of tracks that Rowena had disturbed leading out from her study.</p><p>Her front door had been ajar, so it was a safe bet that’s where she’d emerged from, so Tacita retraced her steps until she was back on the porch, and her enhanced eyes picked out the preserved tracks in the grass and mud surrounding the house.</p><p>Knowing that the tracks would vanish the moment they were out of the strange bubble around the house that preserved everything inside of it, she could still get a general direction and idea of the girl’s pace. And she did, Rowena had clearly been running as she’d circled around the house, and stopped, standing in the one space for a while, since her tracks sank into the grass and mud with a bit more definition due to her weight settling.</p><p>Tacita frowned, scanning the direction Rowena had been facing to try and find a sign of what she was looking at, and saw another pair of footprints facing her that also sank into the earth from standing for a length of time. But unlike Rowena’s, those footprints had no tracks leading up to them, it was as if the person had appeared out of nowhere right below the study window.</p><p>Carefully walking around so she could study the other person’s footprints, Tacita focused her vision to the degree she was getting painful detail on every blade of grass and speck of mud. The strain was painful, and her aura was feeling the drain, but she needed to understand the mystery of what had happened. Crouching down near the footprints, she softly ran her hand along the grass and mud they’d been standing on.</p><p>Their feet had been too small to be a man, but they’d sunk into the mud heavier than your average person, especially given their foot size, which implied armour. A Huntress.</p><p>Finding what she was looking for, Tacita brushed aside a few long blades of grass and plucked up the small feather that had been pressed into the mud underneath their boot. A raven feather, just like the other one.</p><p>Clicking her tongue in thought, Tacita straightened and grabbed the book from her bag, placing the feather with the other one before putting it away again. Rowena’s tracks stopped. She hadn’t moved from that spot, she’d simply vanished.</p><p>Somehow.</p><p>The last thing she’d done at her house was see a raven in her window, rush out of her house to her backyard, stand face-to-face with a person who appeared out of nowhere and who left feathers behind, and then they’d simply vanished without a trace.</p><p>
  <em>'...I have no ideas. Yet.'</em>
</p><p>Drawing her blades from her hips, she clipped them together and transformed her weapon back into its bow form, which she then clicked closed to hang by her side as she turned and silently made her way back towards Ywitawa itself, deep in thought the entire way.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I. Love. Tacita.<br/>She's been so underdeveloped so far, because her characteristics and personality are VERY hard to write since her core trait is she's almost impossibly observant and perceptive, but it's time she gets the attention she's ready to get, dammit.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Breaking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>With Angel captured and imprisoned deep in the domain of darkness, she's completely at Delilah's mercy, but as her defiance rises higher and higher it only raises Delilah's interest in her to the same heights alongside it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a Delilah chapter from start to finish.</p><p>TW; Severe torture, and mutilation.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As consciousness began to return to her clouded mind, the first thing Angel noticed was how cold it was. The air carried such a chill that even through the restraints she easily felt on herself it still froze her skin, not quite cold enough to hurt but in her state of disheveled shock it still chewed away at her.<br/>Blinking her eyes open, though they fought the movement, she looked around at the chamber she was in. Strange purplish walls of a strange jagged crystal, stone flooring, and the ceiling of the same crystal formation, it was unearthly and alien. Every muscle was sore, and as she instinctively pulled against the restraints she felt how tight they were, binding her almost rigidly to the crystal slab she was tied to.</p><p>Though she was able to lift her head up slightly, the restraint around her neck unable to be truly tightened due to the metal collar attached to her skin, and she strained to look around the room itself. Seeing jars, containers, and even what appeared to be a few trays of metal instruments, she was clearly in some sort of makeshift laboratory, and she focused her eyes to try and get a sight of what was being kept around.</p><p>While most of the containers and buckets were either closed or too low for her to see inside of, she was able to glimpse at rows of jars on every shelf of a nearby bookcase, and her eyes widened as she recognised what were clearly sections of brains.</p><p> </p><p>Sucking in a quick breath of shock as a violent tremor of fear went through herself, she swallowed it down, feeling that it was a given that screaming for any sort of help would be pointless. Thrashing against the restraints again, she heard the jangling of chains and resigned to her fate. Leather cables she might have a chance of breaking, but true steel shackles she didn’t stand a chance of even straining.</p><p>Taking in a deep calming breath and letting it out slowly, she attempted to clear her mind as best as she could in order to think rationally, trying to focus on the last things she remembered before winding up where she was. But it required thinking through her memories of the fight in the village.<br/>And it led to thinking of Lucy.</p><p>Her eyes widening as she remembered, she thrashed against the restraints again as a heavy snarl and sob left her throat, her eyes flashing with her powerful aura that was barely contained by her limiters which were seemingly all still attached. But she felt her aura flex in her grief and rage regardless, vibrating underneath her skin.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucy…”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes as a few tears shed silently, she bit her bottom lip and allowed herself to shiver in both fear and grief, clenching her fists so hard her nails wanted to break through the aura-reinforced skin of her palms. Eventually the energy left her and she slumped, her head falling back onto the crystal slab. Trying to calm herself yet again, she took a number of slow and deep breaths before opening her eyes and looking around again in desperate but calculated search for anything that could help her form any sort of plan. Raising her eyebrows when she glimpsed her weapon resting on a far table, she despaired at it being on the opposite side of the room, but at least she knew where it was.<br/>But other than that, nothing around her gave her any ideas.</p><p>It was clearly a surgery more than any other sort of laboratory. There were intense lights to make it easier to see, plenty of trays and dishes that could be wheeled around and used as needed, and as she took in deep breaths through her nose she could faintly pick up the scent of blood and other gore, from both the table she was on but also from some of the buckets nearby.<br/>Making sure to try and keep her rising fear under control, she clenched her fists again in another wave of desperation as she tried to think.</p><p>But no ideas came.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, an impossible to know amount of time later, the door opened of its own accord with a gross wet slithering noise, and the ‘woman’ they had fought at the village stepped in, casually stretching her arms above her head as the door closed behind her. Angel immediately thrashed violently against the restraints.</p><p>“You <b> <em>BITCH!</em> </b> ” Snarling viciously, Angel felt her aura spike behind her eyes again. “I’m going to <b> <em>BURN </em> </b> you to <b> <em>ASHES!</em> </b>”</p><p>Raising her eyebrows at the outburst, Kakra let out a hum of amusement as a small smile tickled the corners of her mouth, and she grabbed a nearby chair, sliding it along the stone ground with a horrific grinding screech of metal against stone, before placing it next to the table. But instead of sitting straight away, she instead paced around it, looking down at the restrained girl whose eyes were glowing so brightly with her aura she would have lit up the room if there hadn’t been any other lights.</p><p>“If you were able to, you would have back in town.”</p><p>“I have to hold back around people.” Angel hissed, thrashing again to get closer and raising her head the few inches she could in order to glare. “I don’t have that problem now.”</p><p>Raising an eyebrow again, Kakra reached out with a single finger and ran it down Angel’s face, tapping her on one of her still glowing eyes in intrigue, causing Angel to flinch away at the sting. Continuing her finger’s slow journey across Angel’s face, Kakra tilted her head.</p><p>“I actually believe you. You...have been a pain, even while you were having your little nap.”</p><p>Snorting, Angel let every drip of malice and hatred remain in her tone, feeling no need to whimper or retreat. “I’ve been told I’m hard to deal with.”</p><p>Nodding, Kakra lazily tickled her lethally taloned finger down Angel’s collared neck, tickling patterns down her collarbone, before tracing a line over the swell of her chest to her left shoulder and resting there, her other fingers joining the touch and each drawing small meaningless patterns. </p><p>“My mother wasn’t able to attend to you right away, she’s been busy with our queen.” Kakra spoke unnervingly casually as she looked down into Angel’s eyes and stroked her shoulder. “So it’s been my job to keep you unconscious until she’s ready for you. And you are <em> very </em>hard to incapacitate.”</p><p>Narrowing her eyes into a glare, Angel couldn’t stop the small smirk from crossing her features with a cruel edge to it, but she didn’t respond with words, not wanting to give her captor the satisfaction.</p><p>Frowning at her silence, Kakra stopped tracing with her fingers and instead flatly placed her hand on Angel’s shoulder properly, finding a small degree of thrill at the developing muscle she felt underneath the skin, a result of Angel’s intensified training.</p><p>“See, I could have simply kept suffocating you to knock you out. But my mum didn’t want me to risk damaging your brain from continued lack of oxygen. She wants your brain as intact as possible.” Rolling her eyes, Kakra sighed. “Unsurprising. But that meant I had to think of other options. Normally you can just whack someone on the head to rattle their lumps, but...that doesn’t work with you.”</p><p> </p><p>Not giving Angel any time to respond, or even really process what she had said, Kakra emphasised her point by pressing down on Angel’s shoulder. Hard.</p><p> </p><p>The wet crunching sound of the joint snapping was so loud in the quiet room that Kakra shivered even as Angel immediately screamed at the pain of her shoulder breaking, thrashing around from the agony even as Kakra kept her hand on her now broken shoulder for a few more moments before pushing even harder, grinding the now broken bones and torn tendons together before releasing the pressure and returning her touch to merely tickling the now agonised skin with the tips of her talons.<br/>Angel spasmed as the shock of the pain and breakage hit her system, but her aura had immediately begun glowing powerfully enough it was almost painful for Kakra to look at, and only a few moments later the sound of Angel’s shoulder grinding and clicking back into place was audible, the pain fading as her bones repaired and her tendons reattached fast enough it was visible to the human eye, her skin rippling as her aura pulled her shoulder back together.</p><p>Gesturing to the sight, Kakra thinned her lips in exaggerated frustration.</p><p>“You have not made this easy. Eventually I didn’t <em> have </em> any other options except to perfect just how long I had to cut off your air to knock you out but without doing any damage. Might have scrambled your eggs a <em> little </em>bit, no way for me to know, but I’m sure my mum will forgive me. Not much she can’t patch up during her process.” </p><p>A few last remaining tears of pain in the corner of her eyes, Angel’s breaths were still gasps as she coughed. “So why am I awake <em> now? </em>”</p><p>“I got bored.” Pouting slightly, Kakra huffed, looking off at a wall and sliding the tips of her talons down from Angel’s shoulder and along her arm, making sure to run along the lines of the several burn scars she had across her skin from her aura burning her at times in the past. “There’s really not much to do around here. I have one hell of an appetite but I do get full eventually.”</p><p>Shivering at the delicate contact on the extremely sensitive skin, Angel winced. “The fuck does <em> that </em> mean?” <br/>“You’ll find out soon enough, probably. Not sure. She’ll either fix you up, or just take the working parts. You’re a bit shorter than any of my other siblings have been, but she might give you a shot…” Tilting her head, Kakra ran her eyes over Angel as if scrutinising her, with her eyes a mixture of playful but also teasing.</p><p> </p><p>“...who <em> are </em>you monsters?...” </p><p> </p><p>Angel’s voice was barely above a whisper as her eyes widened, easily picking apart what Kakra had said and coming to the right conclusions as she took in the jars of brain and whatever smelt like blood in the numerous containers and buckets. She wanted to thrash and struggle again, but she felt paralysed as her breathing wanted to stop in her chest.<br/>Pausing in her stroking at the question, Kakra tilted her head in thought as she tried to consider an answer, humming in interest as she sank down into the chair she had pulled over, still tall enough she could look down at Angel, but now close enough that Angel could make out the three different swirling colours in Kakra’s eyes, constantly battling and pulsing underneath the surface.</p><p>Returning her fingers to Angel’s skin mindlessly as she thought, Kakra moved her touch from Angel’s arm to her stomach, still covered by the tshirt Angel wore underneath her padded jacket which had been stripped from her. Lifting the rim of her shirt only up enough that she could play with the soft skin and toned flesh of Angel’s stomach, Kakra let out another hum as she struggled to figure out how to answer.</p><p>“It’s strange how complicated it can sometimes be to give a simple answer, isn’t it?” Chuckling in amusement, Kakra shrugged, dismissing any compulsion to explain any of the more complicated details. “I can answer for myself at least. I’m Kakra. My mother’s firstborn of her newest generation of children.”</p><p>Staring at Kakra in cold consideration for a few moments as she processed, the lingering dregs of her fear preventing her from summoning any anger or hatred, Angel let out a shaky breath from slightly-parted lips and looked away, staring up at the roof and flinching every few moments from Kakra’s stroking of the skin of her stomach. “...your mother?”</p><p>“Yes. She created me. Her name is Delilah, you’ll meet her soon. Be polite when you do, she’s hoping to talk to you properly.”</p><p>To reinforce the otherwise casually given command, Kakra sank her talons into the flesh of Angel’s stomach, but due to the immense shielding of her aura Kakra’s talons didn’t even break through the skin, though it was agony to feel regardless, and Angel gasped out at the pain and tried her best to pull away out of reflex, the gasp turning into a staggered groan as Kakra scratched down savagely.<br/>As Angel shivered in shock from the pain, her eyes wide and staring up at the roof, Kakra sighed in frustration and slammed her hand on the table in annoyance, pointing to the still shimmering aura of her stomach.</p><p>“Yeah see, that? That. What’s up with that? And those things on your wrists and neck.” Gesturing to the two large cuffs and the collar, Kakra’s face was bewildered. “I answered yours. Now you answer mine. What’s <em> your </em>deal?”</p><p>“Go to hell.” </p><p>Hissing defiantly, Angel shot an agonised but hateful glare at Kakra, who in response rose to her feet and put a hand on Angel’s left calf and began to press down, slowly increasing the pressure over time.</p><p>Screaming at the pain as her bone was gradually bent and reaching its breaking point, Angel thrashed on the table uselessly and cried out, her eyes tightly closed and her throat going dry as the muscles of her arms grew sore from straining against the chains. Kakra was in perfect control as she regulated the pressure, able to drag out the slow increase for over two solid minutes before finally reaching the moment Angel’s tibia gave out with a loud snap, and Angel’s vision exploded into white stars behind her eyes as her scream reached such a high pitch it was soundless, her eyes opening wide and staring up at the bright lights on the ceiling, though in her peripheral she could see the calm playful smile on Kakra’s lips.</p><p>The pressure on her vanished and, just like with her arm, only a few moments later her leg snapped back together and straight as the bone repaired itself. But the aftershocks of the sheer agony had Angel shivering violently, head spasming from side to side as her dry throat had her coughing instead of sobbing. Fingers delicately touched her cheek to wipe away her tears, and Angel twisted her head violently to get away from the touch.</p><p>Humming in satisfaction, Kakra turned to a nearby counter and poured a glass of water for the girl, and when Angel attempted to keep her head facing away Kakra simply grabbed her chin and yanked before pinching her nose closed until Angel was forced to open her mouth to breathe. Pouring the water down the girl’s throat, Kakra didn’t relent until the entire glass was empty, and when she let go she stepped back as Angel coughed violently, clearing the water that had gone into her lungs. Spitting dregs of water out to the side, Angel clenched her eyes shut and thrashed against the restraints again.</p><p>Placing the cup back on the counter she had taken it from, Kakra casually made her way back over and sat back down into her chair, crossing one leg over the other and folding her arms, waiting patiently for Angel to calm herself and go still, only speaking again when she had the girl’s undivided attention.</p><p> </p><p>“Now, again, what’s your deal? How do you do that?”</p><p>When Angel was still silent and refused to answer, merely glaring at Kakra with shaking and wet eyes, Kakra rolled her eyes in annoyance and took the smallest finger of Angel’s hand in her grip, raising her eyebrows in the unspoken threat. But still Angel didn’t say anything, and Kakra sighed.</p><p>“This isn’t even important information. You’re doing this to be stubborn.”</p><p>Without giving Angel time to respond, Kakra snapped Angel’s finger. To Angel’s credit, she didn’t thrash around or scream, having clearly mentally prepared for the pain, and instead she merely spasmed and gave a strained groan she tried to swallow. Kakra watched her hand in playful enjoyment as Angel’s finger clicked back together and repaired itself, her aura shining brightly and practically making her hand glow like a torch.</p><p>“If this isn’t <em> ‘even important information’ </em> , then that means you’re not doing this because you need to know. You’re doing this for fun, you psychotic <b> <em>bitch</em> </b>.” Angel managed to growl out as she got her breath back, staring pain and hatred into Kakra’s eyes.</p><p>Pausing for a few moments and giving Angel an incredulous look, Kakra gave a bewildered shrug and scrunched up her eyebrows. “Well...yeah. I said I was bored. And obviously you can do this forever, and clearly we both know it. But don’t be stubborn. It just means your mind will give out before your body does.”</p><p>Holding Kakra’s gaze for a few moments, Angel’s expression went hard, and Kakra watched as the pain vanished from her face and hardened steel appeared in her eyes. With a defiant voice, Angel snarled and looked back up at the roof.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll see.”</p><p> </p><p>Staring at Angel silently for a few moments, blinking in surprise, Kakra slowly smiled. A small amused tilt in the corners of her mouth at first, eventually it bloomed into a wide grin as she stood and stretched her arms above her head, loosening up.<br/>Hopping up with assistance from a simple flex of her wings, Kakra landed on the table and straddled Angel’s knees, rubbing her hands together as her eyes traveled up and down Angel’s body, picking out spots.</p><p>“Well alright then. I just <em> knew </em>we were going to get along. Let’s see how much time we have to kill. Muscle or bone first?”</p><p>“Bones.” The sheer level of defiance and bravery in Angel’s voice had Kakra shiver so violently in excitement that it was visible to both of them, the feathers of her wings rippling.</p><p>Smiling sweetly as she placed a hand directly on the ridge of Angel’s hip bone, Kakra’s voice was gentle and amused, almost playful, almost <em> affectionate.  </em></p><p> </p><p>“Bones it is.”</p><p> </p><p>With that same sweet smile on her face, Kakra leant down and placed her ear near Angel’s mouth, as if expecting her to whisper. Listening to Angel’s defiant breathing, Kakra picked up the small wavers of fear in it, and she closed her eyes to be able to listen closer before pressing down violently and snapping Angel’s hip.</p><p>And just as she wanted, Angel screamed.</p><p> </p><p>Waiting patiently, keeping her ear near Angel’s mouth but out of range of any thrashing her new toy might try to do, Kakra opened her eyes and leant up just enough she could look down into Angel’s pained and desperate eyes, tears dripping down on the table. As Angel’s cries faded back into whimpers and she clenched her jaw to stifle them, Kakra kept her hand on Angel’s hip as the bone clicked back into place underneath her touch, noting the shimmering hum coming from Angel’s impossibly potent aura.</p><p>Kakra’s voice was gentle. “Again; How do you do that? What’s the deal with your aura?”</p><p>Taking in a few rapid deep breaths to calm herself, Angel shook her head violently, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw so tight that the muscles began to grow sore. Smiling, Kakra pressed an increasingly fond kiss to Angel’s cheek.</p><p>“Still stubborn. But we’ll see. Now…” Kakra sat up, still straddling Angel’s legs, and danced her fingers along the different bones and joints available to her, Angel still keeping her eyes tightly closed and her head turned to the side, her skin paled from pain. “What next?...”</p><p>Coming up with an idea, Kakra lifted Angel’s shirt up slightly higher, until the ridges of the girl’s ribcage were visible. Smiling at the girl’s almost immaculate skin, Kakra placed two fingers on the visible ridge of her seventh rib.</p><p> </p><p>“One…” Pressing in, Kakra’s smile finally broke from being sweet into being viciously euphoric as she both felt and watched the bone crack and break underneath her pressure, and Angel screamed into her own closed mouth, managing to keep her jaw clenched.</p><p> </p><p>“Two…” Moving up a rib, Kakra pressed in once again, slower this time so that the bone had a second to strain in resistance before cracking. Angel again managed to keep her jaw clenched, but also opened her eyes to glare agonised hatred up at Kakra, only for her eyes to widen in fresh agony when Kakra moved up yet another rib.</p><p> </p><p>“Three…”</p><p> </p><p>Thrashing around violently and her back arching up from the pain, Angel’s lips finally parted in a desperate heaving groan, looking up at the ceiling above. Stars swam in her vision and everything was blurry as the silence of the room in between Kakra’s counting was somehow deafeningly loud to her panicked senses.</p><p> </p><p>“Four…”</p><p> </p><p>Another snap, and Angel went limp as it hit her mind, her legs spasming and shaking from the shock smashing through her system as her head thrashed from side to side, but otherwise the sheer weight of her own body felt as if it was pinning her to the table, with nothing existing in her nerves except for pain.</p><p> </p><p>“Five…”</p><p> </p><p>Barely even registering it consciously, Angel groaned again and coughed out a sob, but her mind was already beginning to compartmentalise and detach from the pain, a degree of clarity returning to herself even as she noted that her bottom two ribs had already healed. Even as Kakra moved on, her mind had distanced itself, and she was simply able to glare at Kakra and not give more than grunts as Kakra finished up.</p><p> </p><p>“Six….and….seven.”</p><p> </p><p>Noting that Angel had adjusted to the pain, Kakra gave an impressed smile, raising her eyebrows and placing her hands on Angel’s shoulders as she shuffled up, straddling the girl properly.</p><p>“You’re stubborn <em> and </em>strong. I can see why that Lionheart thought we should deal with the four of you…”</p><p>At that, Angel’s eyes went wide, and even though speech was still currently beyond her it didn’t stop her mouth from opening and closing as a wave of immense dread and shock went through her as a thousand paranoias were confirmed at once. Lucy and Alice had been right.<br/>It <em> had </em>been deliberate.</p><p>...had Headmaster Lionheart...</p><p>
  <em> No. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Seeing the panic and despair in Angel’s eyes, Kakra nodded, extending her wings slightly to make her presence larger and more looming even as she sat up straighter, making sure her presence was the only thing Angel could see as the girl fought the need to scream in rage and despair once again. Kakra nodded in confirmation again, her voice softening even as her lips curled into a hungry smirk.</p><p>“It’s true, pet. It’s true.”</p><p>Kakra reached up with a hand and cupped Angel’s face softly, stroking the soft smooth skin of her jaw as the girl’s composure was weakened. Without giving the girl any warning, Kakra casually and slowly slid her fingers to her mandibular joint before savagely pressing, breaking Angel’s jaw. The girl’s composure shaken and her mind racing and distracted, she wasn’t braced at all, and so she finally screamed once again, shaking and thrashing as Kakra grabbed the other side of her head with her other hand to hold it still so she could both force Angel to look up at her, but also watch as Angel’s jaw snapped back into place and the bones healed.</p><p>Tears streamed down Angel’s face and dripped onto the table, and Kakra gave another small and affectionate smile, her eyes softening as she released Angel’s face from her grip.</p><p>“Still want bones? Or should I switch to muscles and tendons yet?”</p><p>Staring up at Kakra in agonised despair for a few moments, Angel turned her head and looked away, a large amount of her defiance lost from her features, but enough remained to hold her steady, though she lacked enough to snarl back.</p><p>Progress. But she was going to be a tough nut to crack. Kakra swooned.</p><p>“Muscles for a while, then.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Sitting around the large meeting table in the castle’s great hall, Salem’s chief subordinates were silent as they waited for their queen to finish her thoughts. They had each arrived one by one throughout the course of the day, and she was patiently waiting for each of them to center themselves and settle in before what was likely going to be a long meeting. The world hadn’t been dormant since the last time they had all met and spoken, and they had all travelled a long way before needing to return for their regular meeting.</p><p>Watts looked as impeccable as ever, sitting with his hands folded on the table in front of him as he took in the appearances and demeanours of each of his co-conspirators, not a single hair out of place or a crease in his immaculate suit. Hazel looked slightly more bedraggled than usual, having had the furthest distance to travel from the far reaches of Mistral where he’d been dealing with Adam Taurus and his forces, which were mobilising against Sienna Khan and preparing for his attempt to take over the White Fang entirely. He found the faunus lieutenant to be exhausting to deal with. Tyrian was always a relentless force of energy and enthusiasm, and he was crouched on his seat in his usual way, though he had been beating himself up internally for the roadblocks in his search for the Spring Maiden, which had stalled.</p><p>Next to him, in the seat that had become her usual, Delilah sat with a small frown on her face, silently tapping her fingers on the table slowly as her mind lingered on her newest acquisition at Kakra’s hands, and what to do with her. While she didn’t have much, if any, understanding of the girl’s particular Semblance yet, she’d get to the bottom of it. But for now it was a puzzle, and she liked puzzles.</p><p>On Tyrian’s other side, Cinder sat silently as she was forced to, and without her trademark haughtiness she instead sat subdued and withdrawn, her hands folded on her lap and her expression blank and sealed away. Her training with her Maiden abilities had been progressing slowly, and with Delilah forbidden by Salem to heal her throat and lungs she was forced to wait for them to heal naturally, and her inability to speak had humbled her greatly.</p><p> </p><p>As each of them sat in their own thoughts, Salem contemplated her own, making them wait being yet another small expression of dominance which Delilah and Watts were both united in finding more amusing than it was annoying. But Delilah had mountains more respect for Salem than Watts did, so she kept her expression schooled meanwhile Watts ended up cracking first out of everyone at the table and his face twitched.</p><p>Salem’s eyes flicked to him, and she raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you’re eager to report, Arthur? Some development?”</p><p>“...merely curious as to the news any of the others might have for us, ma’am.” Arthur said as diplomatically as possible, trying to hide his flinch under Salem’s stare. “Lionheart has continued to play ball, as we expected. The roster of Mistral Huntsmen is getting rather low.”</p><p>“I can confirm this, my queen.” Delilah spoke up, allowing her tapping on the table to grow slightly heavier. She nodded towards Salem. “My harpies are having to travel further distances and search more intensely in order to find many candidates. The southern forests are entirely left defenseless now.”</p><p>“Good. Good. And he has continued to avoid suspicion?” Salem looked to Arthur again, who huffed in amusement and nodded. A ghost of a smile touched her lips in satisfaction, and she looked to Delilah. “Tell me of your own efforts. What is your progress?”</p><p> </p><p>Sucking in a breath, Delilah considered for a moment, aware that herself and Salem had different standards and perceptions on what counted as ‘progress’. Their goals weren’t aligned, Delilah was merely a useful resource, and both of them knew of that distinction, so Delilah thought over it for a moment before giving a small smile.</p><p>“My current lower-generation force number close to two hundred, my queen. Mostly of the Thrall generation, but as of my last efforts I have twenty-three Behemoths at the ready, along with eight Harpies.”</p><p>“And your Screaming generation?” Though Salem had a general awareness of the results of Delilah’s most recent attempts, she hadn’t been directly observing, and she raised an interested and invested eyebrow.</p><p>“...two, my Queen; Kakra, and her sister Telise awakened four days ago. Other attempts have so far failed, the hosts incompatible.” Wincing in disappointment and frustration, Delilah shook her head regretfully and apologetically, and Salem raised a judgemental eyebrow.</p><p>“Kakra I’m familiar with, what of this Telise?”<br/>“I currently have Telise dispatched to my base of operations in Ikaksi to oversee efforts there and expand my collection of bodies for my return.”</p><p>“And she matches Kakra’s capabilities?”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing to think, Delilah took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out slowly. Kakra was an unmatched force of pure destruction, an incredible weapon, but she lacked any particular finesse or control. She wouldn’t make much of an officer or direct-subordinate in times to come, she was a wild dog, and she knew it herself and also relished in her role. But, she’d done good work in her dispensing of Team LAVA. While she could personally confirm the killing of the team leader, Lelise, the two others had been left in a state Kakra was almost certain they wouldn’t recover from, and she’d delivered Angel Wince to them.</p><p>Meanwhile Telise was by far much smarter, and had the self-restraint and focus that Kakra lacked, making her the perfect choice to replace Kakra as Delilah’s right-hand. That didn’t make her any less dangerous in combat, however. She lacked Kakra’s aura reserves and her raw physical strength, nor was she able to fly, but she was far faster, was able to blend in with humans easier, and had her mother’s cold and detached disposition.</p><p>Delilah had her killer in Kakra, and her general in Telise. </p><p> </p><p>So Delilah smiled and gave a slow but confident nod. “I intend on Telise returning soon for further testing of her abilities once she has fully acclimated to her new form, but for now I am very impressed with her. As for my next hopeful child, my work on him will continue once enough of his flesh has regenerated. I’m using him as a guinea pig for the flesh-pod design.”</p><p>With her forces spreading out and the number needing to increase exponentially, Delilah couldn’t be everywhere at once to manage them and also create more, so a more...indirect method had to be devised. During one of her rather lengthy discussions with her Queen, Delilah had been struck by inspiration upon passing through the vast black pools that spawned the Grimm, and she had gotten to work immediately on designing and giving birth to a pod which could repair her children. And potentially eventually even create more simply by being fed the bodies.<br/>But it was going to be slow work to design and grow the first functional one, despite promising results in the first trials she had conducted in a spare room of the castle. But she would still create her Screamer generation by hand, the powerful and clever children deserving and needing her personal touch in order to bestow their gifts and awareness to them.</p><p>At the mention of the pulsing pod of dark flesh and squirming veins and tendrils that were almost like roots that existed in that otherwise empty room of the castle, Emerald shivered at the thought of it from where she was standing behind Cinder, and Delilah looked to her with an insulted and disapproving scowl. Emerald’s disrespect for her children was growing increasingly insulting, the girl determined to misunderstand her work. She was a sensitive soul, and Delilah could understand that, but she had at least hoped Emerald would be reasonably adaptive. At least Mercury had seemed to come to terms with the idea even if he didn’t fully understand it.</p><p>But Emerald continued to shiver and freeze and look down at the ground if she was ever in the same room as Kakra, and actively shivered and squeezing her eyes shut if forced to be in the proximity of one of the Harpies.</p><p>Delilah’s offended and protective scowl deepened for a moment, before Salem’s voice snapped her attention back again immediately.</p><p>“Very well, report on the results of the pod experiment. With two of your Screamer generation, consider the pod your priority from here on out until I’m satisfied with the results.” Salem’s tone was curious, but there was a warning in it, and Delilah looked down at the table and nodded subserviently.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been getting too caught up in her personal experiments.</p><p> </p><p>Satisfied with Delilah, Salem turned her attention to Hazel, who sighed in exasperation, but his voice was as measured and respectful as it always was. “Adam Taurus continues to prepare for his move, ma’am. He’ll be ready soon, and I intend on being there when he makes it.”</p><p>“Good. His forces were certainly helpful in the fall of Beacon. His enthusiasm for continuing on to Haven is useful. Make sure he does not fail.”</p><p>Hazel nodded obediently, before frowning slightly in thought. “I’m doing my best to keep him focused, but he’s currently distracted.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Reports of White Fang camps in south-western Mistral being destroyed have been increasing. And reports of a sole enemy he believed he had killed at the Battle Of Beacon have been coming in. It’s not only damaging his pride, but his failure at killing a <em> student </em>could damage his reputation.”</p><p>“A surviving <em> student </em>distracts him?” Arthur asked incredulously, before rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. “Typical of such a man. His work should matter more than his pride.”</p><p>Meanwhile Delilah frowned, and a small niggling paranoia appeared in the back of her mind, so she tilted her head and looked to Hazel properly. “...any idea which student, Hazel?”</p><p>The man was quiet for a few moments, taking Delilah in. It wasn’t a secret around the table that he didn’t like <em> or </em>trust her, but Salem was looking at him as well. “Shina Kamisari. The boy was a certainty for the grand final of the Tournament. Adam defeating him was good for morale after the battle.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment, both of Salem’s eyebrows went up, and a fascinated smile touched the corners of her mouth as she folded her hands on the table. “A new Kamisari...”</p><p>For the first time, Tyrian perked up, a wild grin on his face and his hands rubbing together while his eyes were somehow both completely focused but also off in memory at the same time, his breath filled with a giggle.</p><p>At Shina’s name, Delilah had sucked in a quick breath and she blinked, meanwhile Mercury stiffened slightly and he raised his eyebrows, glancing at Emerald who met his stare as well.</p><p>“...and his team?” Delilah’s voice was suddenly cautious and guarded enough that everyone around the table noticed. Delilah was always composed, and caution was a tone they hadn’t heard from her before, so even Hazel frowned as he nodded.</p><p>“They’re with him.”</p><p>“All three of them?”</p><p>“According to reports and rumors.”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes, Delilah couldn’t resist the instinct to rub them in a small moment of concern, meanwhile Cinder’s fingers dug into the table slightly at the reminder of Kylar and Tacita. If the brats hadn’t delayed her from making her move on Ozpin, things could have gone far easier, and she’d kept the fact she’d let them live a secret. That had clearly been a mistake. Her hubris had caused her to make a fair few of those that night.</p><p>Salem was watching Delilah’s reaction intently, and she raised a curious eyebrow, her voice curious but also pointed enough it was almost an interrogation. “A problem, Delilah?”</p><p>“...maybe. Team SKTC are...different. One of Ozpin’s favourites. They’re the ones that figured out what we were up to.”</p><p>“I see…” Salem’s gaze flicked to Cinder, who shrank under the disappointed stare slightly. That particular detail had been one that Salem had made clear she was waiting to interrogate Cinder about for when the girl could speak again. Eventually, after a few steady moments, she looked back to Delilah. “A Kamisari in play could be useful to us. Are any of his teammates potentially of interest?”</p><p>Both Delilah and Hazel glanced at each other, seeming to silently debate which one of them wanted to say. While Delilah only knew her classmates themselves for their talents, Hazel was aware of...a certain name’s reputation. With Delilah hesitating a second too long, Hazel took the job, and he met Salem’s eyes seriously when he spoke.</p><p> </p><p>“The two girls are simply talented, but the other boy is a Goroesi, ma’am.”</p><p>At that, even Arthur narrowed his eyes, a small flicker of both concern and disdain appearing in his expression, and he practically spat out his words. “<em> ...<strong>Logan’s</strong> boy. </em>”</p><p>Salem was silent for a minute as she went deep into thought, templing her hands in front of her face as her eyes narrowed. Eventually she hummed in amusement, and when she spoke it was as if she was simply thinking out loud. “Pairing a Goroesi with a Kamisari, Ozpin… Clever. Very clever. But it won’t be enough.”</p><p>“If they make it to Haven, it would only be a Goroesi that could talk some spine back into Lionheart.” Arthur snarled, the face of Logan Goroesi flashing into his mind and causing his eyes to narrow. “It would only make sense that’s where they’re heading.”</p><p>“Of course. Ozpin would have brought them into the fold, before the end. A Kamisari and a Goroesi? He wouldn’t have been able to resist.” Salem chuckled, the corner of her mouth turned up slightly in a satisfied expression. “Very well. This could be advantageous, depending on how far along the Kamisari boy is.”</p><p> </p><p>Tyrian nodded in agreement, clapping his hands together as his mind flashed with images of the possibilities. Their fight, if it came to that, would result in more bloodshed than most could comprehend, especially if the Kamisari curse held true. He giggled, and his eyes sharpened. While he desperately wanted to rush out and chase it down...it would be best to wait. To be patient. Much like fine wine, it would be best to wait for the proper ingredients to ferment.</p><p>Patience.</p><p>But the topic seemed closed for now while Salem considered their options, and reports moved back to Watts and his tinkering in the systems of Atlas and his monitoring of attempts by the kingdoms to restore global communications. Thankfully, Arthur had enough friends left in Atlas that attempts were being stalled and distracted, with Ironwood being distracted and interrupted at every turn.</p><p>There was a mention of the Deep Freeze, a region mysterious enough that Delilah almost perked up, but instead she sat lingering in her own thoughts.</p><p>Eventually the topic changed yet again, without Delilah being called upon to offer any input at all, and Tyrian began giving his own report on his constant search for the Spring Maiden, but the conversation was soon interrupted by the sudden overwhelming weight of someone’s aura radiating out of them and pressing against everything in proximity. Each of them looked towards the open door, the aura not being any of theirs.</p><p> </p><p>Delilah didn’t have to think hard in order to guess who it was.</p><p> </p><p>As the pulsing continued for over two solid minutes, eventually it vanished in a flash and the halls went cold, and it was so sudden and out of nowhere that it was eerie. While for the most part the others had kept their composure, Emerald was looking in the direction of the door with wide and horrified eyes. Pressure and presence of that magnitude had driven the breath out of her lungs, dwarfing even the power that Delilah and Cinder had radiated during their stand-off back in Beacon. Even Mercury was frowning, and when he noticed Emerald shaking he reached out and nudged her to get her to focus again, but it barely worked.</p><p>Salem slowly and wordlessly looked to Delilah, who nodded deeply, and rose.</p><p>“I’ll go deal with it, my queen. If my presence is no longer required?”</p><p>“It is not. You have your orders.”<br/><br/></p><p>Giving a respectful bow, Delilah turned and slowly left the hall, making sure to close the door behind her.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Kakra watched as Angel quivered and whimpered on the table below her. She’d gotten off the girl’s lap a while ago, initially to grab a scalpel from one of the several trays of Delilah’s surgical instruments, but she’d remained on the ground so that she’d have further access to the more meaty parts. Spinning the scalpel in one hand, she playfully dropped the sliver of skin and muscle she’d carved from Angel’s thigh into the dish she’d been collecting it all in, before watching yet again as the flesh and skin slowly regenerated right before her eyes.</p><p>It had been hours, so Angel’s near-infinite reserves of aura were finally starting to dwindle, and it finally meant that it was possible to make the girl bleed. The options had become limitless, and she’d had to regenerate quite a bit of skin and tissue since then as Kakra was slowly filling a large dish with cuttings as if she was preparing a cow for cooking. Granted she wasn’t taking <em> that </em>much at a time.</p><p>With her aura weakened, Angel’s wrists and ankles had begun to bleed from her thrashing and straining against the restraints, and the rubbing had worn away at the skin.</p><p>As Angel’s thigh finished regenerating, Kakra placed her free hand on the girl’s shoulder and simply raised an eyebrow in fierce approval and fixation. “Alright. Still nothing. Let’s try something else. What can you tell me about the snake girl?”</p><p>When Angel didn’t move at first, instead looking away with wide open eyes, and her mouth stayed shut, Kakra sighed with a small smirk.</p><p>“Suit yourself.”</p><p> </p><p>Flicking the scalpel around in her grip playfully, she placed the razor-edge of the blade against Angel’s stomach and began the delicate process of removing a large layer of skin, going far slower than she had to, and smiling in satisfaction as Angel began to scream again, her self-restraint long since broken even if jagged edges of her defiance remained.<br/>Sobbing openly, Angel was a wreck as Kakra finished, and she showed the dangerously large slice of skin she’d removed to Angel before dropping it into the bowl. The skin gradually began to regenerate on Angel’s stomach, but the girl continued to sob and shiver as she slumped.</p><p>“You sure you want to stay zipped? You’re protecting the secrets of dead girls. They can’t be angry at you.”</p><p>Laying still for a few moments longer, Angel nodded pathetically, closing her eyes again as a few more tears trickled out onto the counter.</p><p>“Come on, give me <em> some </em>gossip. That’s not harmful, right?” Hopping up, Kakra sat on the edge of the counter as she began to lazily trace the tip of the scalpel along the incredibly sensitive new skin on Angel’s stomach, causing the girl to repeatedly flinch.</p><p> </p><p>But Angel’s defiance always returned at the same speed her body regenerated, it seemed. The common theory that a person’s semblance was based on who they were and their personality once again seemed to hold true, and Kakra smiled. It was just dragging things out at this rate.<br/>So Kakra simply once again dug the scalpel into the girl, in the flesh of her hip, and with careful precision she carefully carved out a chunk large enough it would fill a tablespoon. The girl thrashed and screamed almost soundlessly the whole time, reaching such a pitch that it was practically inaudible as she was forced to not just <em> feel </em>her flesh being carved, but also hear it, and she once again began to beg in a constant stream of incomprehensible words.</p><p>Plucking the piece of flesh from the wound, using her talons to break the last attachments of fat, Kakra raised it so Angel could see it again before dropping it down into the dish. Inserting the scalpel into the wound, she watched as the flesh regenerated around it, and once the wound was entirely enclosed around the blade she gave it a slow savage twist. Angel was a mess of spasming and pleading as she pulled against the restraints, and it took well over a solid minute for Kakra to pull out the blade and watch the regeneration once again.</p><p>“Now, the snake girl. Gimme some juice.”</p><p>Angel calmed slowly, her eyes squeezed shut and her body flinching and twitching, but eventually she answered and her voice was barely a whisper, filled with both pleading but also dripping with hatred.</p><p>“...<em>burn</em>.”</p><p>Raising her eyebrows, Kakra smiled as she casually tossed the scalpel down onto the tray and folded her arms, nodding in approval. “Maybe I might have understood it before my mum saved me, but I just...what are you protecting? You watched them die. They can’t be mad at you. I’m just curious, what’s there for you to lose? They’re just bodies now. Broken enough they weren’t worth even bringing back for my mum. Come on, gimme something.”</p><p>Angel didn’t have anything in her able to respond to her friends being so casually mocked and belittled, and the only reaction was a few more dropped tears and her eyes half-opening.</p><p>As Kakra went to speak again, the door slid open, and Kakra half-froze when she looked into the eyes of her mother. Delilah merely stepped into the room slowly and closed the door behind her, before folding her hands behind her back and fixing Kakra with a disappointed stare.</p><p> </p><p>“Did I say you could play with her?”</p><p>“I...she wasn’t going anywhere…” Kakra mumbled, standing up properly and crossing her arms over her chest. “Not like she won’t heal.”<br/>“That’s not the point. I need her intact.”</p><p>“She’s fine...promise.”</p><p>Raising an eyebrow, Delilah stepped over and looked down at the shivering and distant Angel, who was off in a small corner of her mind where nothing hurt. After pointedly looking down at her for a moment, she flicked her eyes back to Kakra, who had the self-awareness to look down apologetically.</p><p>“I was just a bit bored…”</p><p>“I <em>was</em> going to let you play with her once she and I had talked. But you were impatient, as always.”</p><p>“...sorry mum.”</p><p>“<em><strong>Get out.</strong></em> Go hunt until I call you back.”</p><p> </p><p>Delilah’s tone was scolding and harsh, and Kakra flinched underneath it for a moment before nodding sadly and leaving the room at a slow guilty pace, the door closing behind her and Delilah staring at her back the entire way. Sighing in frustration, Delilah looked down at Angel and clicked her tongue as she took in the damage.<br/>Placing her hand on Angel’s stomach, she slowly began to repair the wounds that had regenerated but hadn’t healed entirely, including toughening the fresh skin on her stomach so that it wasn’t so sensitive. Rebuilding Angel properly piece by piece, and sending soothing waves through her to remove any and all pain, she was satisfied when she felt Angel start to come back to herself.</p><p>When she was done, Delilah removed her hand from Angel’s stomach and quickly left the room to make her way to her own bedroom, snatching up a spare blanket and making her way back to cover Angel up, due to Kakra having cut away most of the fabric of her clothes. After that, it was simply going to be a matter of waiting. </p><p> </p><p>As Angel laid resting, slowly returning to her own senses, Delilah gently placed a hand on her forehead and closed her eyes, carefully and delicately sinking into the rhythms of Angel’s mind and body. The girl had healed impossibly well and incredibly quickly, a result of her nearly endless aura reserves. Even once they began to deplete, they regenerated at a truly rapid pace, as less than ten minutes after Kakra had finished actively damaging her they were already past the halfway point to restoring.<br/>It was unbelievable to observe, even more exhilarating to feel through her Semblance, and Delilah opened her eyes to visually watch as the few lingering marks and scars from Kakra’s work faded from sight.</p><p>While Angel had vicious burn scars on her arms from times her aura had either escaped or she’d actively released it, they were still a sign of her healing capabilities, since Delilah could feel that with any other person they would have likely lost their arms entirely from the heat and intensity of the pressure her aura could exert. According to the files that Lionheart had given her and Watts about the few remaining Mistralian huntsmen of interest, including Team LAVA, Angel had named her semblance <em> ‘Obliteration’. </em>A dark joke, fuelled by a hatred and resentment of her own power.</p><p>Of all of Team LAVA, Delilah would have preferred to get her hands on Lillian Vale, but she couldn’t deny that Angel was progressively becoming just as interesting as her teammate would have been. The vicious scars on her arms and the right side of her torso saddened Delilah to see, and she clicked her tongue as she scanned along Angel’s entire body with her eyes and her Semblance. She had true potential, and Delilah would definitely be able to heal her scars and restore the lingering damage during the process of evolving her.<br/>After everything the girl had gone through, she surely deserved at least that much.</p><p> </p><p>But there were a couple of problems. <em> Serious </em>problems. Her eyes flicked to the bracers on her arms and the collar around her neck.</p><p>If she wanted to evolve the girl, she needed to be able to infuse her own aura into her body and soul, but with aura limiters attached it would make it almost impossible. Delilah would need to remove the limiters, but doing that would release the full might of her Semblance, which could be a threat not just to the two of them, but to the entire castle.</p><p>Evolving Angel would be like defusing a bomb.</p><p> </p><p>Removing her hand from Angel, Delilah sat down on the nearby chair that Kakra had been occupying, and rubbed her eyes in thought as she planned the procedure out in her head.</p><p>Losing track of time as she sat in thought, Delilah eventually looked back to Angel when she saw and heard the girl stir, and she calmly stood to make her way over to the slab, resting a hand on the edge of it casually to slightly lean and look down at the girl as Angel blinked rapidly a few times and fog lifted from her mind. Coming back to awareness was a struggle after having retreated so far back into her own mind, and she shivered as her body became aware of how cold it was due to going into shock.</p><p>Blinking a few more times, Angel exhaustedly looked around, eventually locking eyes with Delilah and spasming in her restraints, her eyes widening, but she otherwise didn’t make a sound.</p><p>“Easy, easy. You’re alright. She’s gone.” Delilah spoke as softly and soothingly as possible, giving a small and apologetic smile. “I apologise for my daughter’s behaviour, she can be...messy.”</p><p> </p><p>Still not saying anything, Angel’s face hardened and her eyes began to defrost from cold in shock, to flaming suspicion and hostility, but Delilah didn’t take it personally as she reached over to fill a glass of water and offer it to the girl. Merely staring at the glass for a few moments, Angel’s eyes flicked between it and Delilah, before she slowly surrendered and lifted her head slightly to sip, swallowing in relief as the water soothed her otherwise dry and raw throat.</p><p>Coughing slightly, Angel winced at the pain, and she looked away, still silent.</p><p>“It will fade, I’ve healed you, but the soreness will last a few more minutes as you warm up again.” Placing the now empty glass back on the nearby counter, Delilah leant against the slab, keeping her voice calm.</p><p>“...you’re Delilah, then.” Angel’s voice was quiet, strained, but the hints of defiance returned in strength as she stared at the other woman. “I saw you around Beacon. Chrystal’s friend.”</p><p>Nodding with a small smile, Delilah’s eyes glimmered at a few memories that flicked through her mind. Part of her had been glad to hear that Chrystal had clearly survived, and managed to eventually escape the city. Despite the problems that the girl could likely cause for all of them in the future, if left undealt with.</p><p>“I am. It’s nice to finally meet you, Angel.”</p><p>In response, Angel merely sharpened her eyes, which shifted to full hostility and defiance. Clenching her jaw, she glared at Delilah in thought for a few moments. “So what are <em> you </em>going to do to me?”</p><p>“Nothing like Kakra did. I’m here to help.”</p><p>“Seems unlikely you’d...kill my friends, and then capture me, just to let me go.” Angel’s voice lowered to a vicious growl as her mind reminded her once again of what had happened, and her eyes briefly flashed with the silver colour of her aura.</p><p>“True.” Chuckling lightly, Delilah nodded before standing, and lightly placing her hand on Angel’s shoulder, the girl violently flinching away from the touch. “No, I’m going to help you properly. I promise.”</p><p>Narrowing her eyes in hostile curiosity, Angel pondered for a few moments as she took in Delilah’s genuine expression. “...how?...”</p><p>“We took your team from you because we had to. They were obstacles in the way of what has to happen next. But <em> you </em>…” Even though her words provoked another thrash of fury from her, Delilah continued to regard Angel softly. “...you don’t have to go through that. You’ve gone through enough...haven’t you?”</p><p>“You don’t know <em> <strong>anything</strong> </em>about me.” Angel snarled, clenching her fists tightly.</p><p>Shaking her head in disagreement, Delilah gave a grim smile. “I do. I’ve been inside you, I’ve seen it all. The scars. How much of your skin is numb, Angel? Too damaged for you to feel anything there anymore.”</p><p>At Delilah’s particular wording, Angel’s face paled as she shivered, and her mouth fell open slightly before she looked away, her mind only processing the rest of what Delilah said after a few moments of cold and confused dread. She forced herself to look back at Delilah, who was patiently and quietly waiting.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you going to do to me?”</p><p>“I’d like to help you live forever.”</p><p>Staring at her with wide eyes, Angel’s mind raced, and Delilah could see the gears turning at a rapid pace, so she simply waited as Angel put pieces together and attempted to figure out everything that she could, and eventually her eyes widened even further, and her voice was filled with a cold fear.</p><p>“You want to make me like the other one. Like...Kakra.”</p><p>Nodding, Delilah rose and made her way over to her jars of brain segments, along with her books, and began to simply sort through them, seemingly content for the conversation to be over for now. Either that, or she was waiting for Angel to speak.</p><p>So Angel spoke.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t let you turn me into a monster.”</p><p>“She’s <em> not </em> a monster.” Snapping and looking over her shoulder with a glare, Delilah’s eyes narrowed in disappointment. “I would have thought that someone like <em> you </em>could finally understand that.”</p><p>“Someone like...me?”</p><p>“You’re studying and training to be a doctor, aren’t you?”</p><p>Pausing for a moment, Angel blinked, before slowly nodding in confirmation. Satisfied, Delilah hummed, turning to face the girl properly. “So surely you can at least <em> start </em>to understand what I’m doing.”</p><p>“I understand enough. You’ve created <em> monsters </em>. I was at Beacon. I’ve fought them.”</p><p>“Why do you people keep thinking you have the right to condemn them as monsters? They are my <em> children. </em>” Narrowing her eyes into a glare, Delilah crossed her arms over her chest. </p><p>“Well then I’m sorry to offend, but your <em> children </em> are fucking <em> horrors </em> . They slaughtered students and ate them, you were kidnapping Huntsmen with that winged monster we killed in the forest and then, out of revenge, your latest creation <em> killed my friends. </em>” Angel’s voice rose into a harsh snarl, and she thrashed against her restraints violently in anger, her eyes glowing with her aura as Delilah simply watched quietly. </p><p> </p><p>When Angel finished, Delilah was silent for a few moments as she thought over what Angel had said, and also to give the girl time to breathe and calm down, before she curiously began to tap her finger on her lips in thought, humming.</p><p>“...I’m surprised you left off your torture from your little outburst.”</p><p>“I…” Blinking, Angel shook her head and slumped, looking up at the roof. “People torture people anyway. It’s not unique to monsters.”</p><p>“Not much of the rest is either though, don’t you think? People killed just as many people as my children did, that night. People have been capturing and experimenting on other people for centuries. And as for killing your friends...I highly doubt you can claim that sort of behaviour to be particular to my children either.”</p><p>Silent for a few moments as she looked up at the ceiling, Angel closed her eyes, her voice quieter. “What’s your point?”</p><p>“You call my children monsters and condemn them for things that basic humans and faunus do as well, but for some reason it’s different. Why are my children different, in your mind? What separates someone like Kakra from someone like <em> you? </em>”</p><p>“You really have to ask?”</p><p>“I really do.” Stepping towards the slab again, Delilah looked down at Angel curiously, staring into her eyes in question when Angel eventually opened them again. “Apart from what your mortal instincts scream incomprehensibly at you, what’s the distinction? You’re a person of science like I am, think logically.”</p><p> </p><p>Delilah was satisfied when Angel was quiet for a few moments and clearly thinking through her answer, the girl’s face hardening and her eyes turning to steel as she stared up at the roof, breaking eye contact so she could think properly. Moments stretched on for over a minute, during which time Delilah stood patiently still and waiting, before eventually Angel answered, her voice convinced and deliberate.</p><p>“Because from everything I’ve seen, I don’t think your children are capable of protecting or defending anything. Kakra didn’t attack us because we killed the other beast, she just used it as a reason to. And during the battle of Beacon, even when things grew worse for them, none of your creatures had the instinct to protect each other. They didn’t even notice. Morality <em> matters </em>.”</p><p>Taking in Angel’s answer, Delilah frowned as she pondered over it, tilting her head in thought. Angel was still simply staring up at the roof, so she didn’t notice when Delilah raised her eyebrows in consideration. Delilah crossed her arms again and began to tap her finger on her lip once more.</p><p>“So you believe the ‘horrific’ distinction isn’t that my children have <em> more </em>than what ordinary humans and faunus do, but it’s what they lack? A lack of drive to sacrifice for each other. An absence of the paralytics of more ‘human’ forms of grief, desperation, and despair. That’s an interesting perspective. But I have another question, then.”</p><p> </p><p>Angel flicked her eyes to look back to Delilah, and she raised a defiant eyebrow, her eyes still sharp with a hateful glare which Delilah continued to ignore. Delilah took the finger she’d been tapping on her lips and instead lowered it to trace lazy patterns onto the surface of the slab Angel was strapped to.</p><p>“Why should I give them those things? How would that make them better?” When Angel went to open her mouth immediately, Delilah raised her hand and interrupted her. “I’m not asking whether or not it would make them more <em> human </em> . I’m asking how it could make them <em> better </em> as a <em> species. </em>Being human, and being better, are not the same thing. In fact, they’re opposites.”</p><p>Closing her mouth again, Angel stared unblinking for a few moments in thought before looking away, biting her lips as her mind raced and processed. Opening and closing her mouth a few times, eventually it became evident to Delilah that the girl...didn’t have an answer ready on her tongue. So she spoke again.</p><p>“I don’t want my children to be more human, Doctor Wince. I want them to be better. I want <em> people </em> to be better. Don’t they deserve to be able to live without those things? Even if just a chance? No despair, or sorrow, or sickness, or injury. Immortality. Strength and growth and change that people are otherwise barred from ever being able to obtain on their own. I want my children to be <em> better </em> than people, and I’m able to make them that way. Why do <em> you </em>want them to be worse again? You’re a doctor and yet you condemn a version of life that lives without pain and despair because you’d prefer them to be a form that suffers, for the sake of your own sensibilities.”</p><p> </p><p>As Angel continued to lay silently, her head still turned away from Delilah as she was lost in racing thought, processing every word Delilah said at a rapid speed and gradually formulating a response, she thinned her lips and closed her eyes, only to freeze when Delilah finished talking.</p><p>“I can stop your arms hurting, Doctor. Imagine it. I can help you. A life without those restraints, without the burns, without the scars. My children are able to live at their strongest. Why shouldn’t people get that chance?” Straightening, Delilah walked over to one of her benches and began to strap her whips onto her wrists, tightening the straps and testing the mechanisms on them to see if they needed maintenance. </p><p>Making her way over to the door, she paused as a final thought occurred to her, and she glanced over at where Angel was laying silently.</p><p>“...or is it that you think people don’t <em> deserve </em> the chance to even just <em> risk </em> change? Do you think you don’t deserve the chance of it, after all you’ve been through?...Why wouldn’t you deserve it?...” Sighing sadly, she tapped her fingers on the doorframe as the door slid open, and she thinned her lips. “I’m going to help you, Angel. I’m going to help all of you. I <em> want </em> you to stop hurting. <br/>You’re broken. You’re so, <em>so</em> broken that even your own aura wants to kill you. You wanted to fix people. I can fix <em> you. </em> You deserve a chance to be put together. Everyone does.”</p><p> </p><p>Stepping out of her lab, she let the door slide closed behind her, and after pausing for a moment she was satisfied when there was no sound of movement from inside. Making her way down the halls, she closed her eyes and reached out with her mind to Kakra, who had been obediently staying away out in the wastelands surrounding the castle.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Love, go get your sister from Ikaksi. I think Angel is going to need her particular company for a few days.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘...okay, mum. Are you sure?’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘It’s the better option.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘What are you going to be up to?’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘I’ll be in my other lab, working on the birthing pod. Don’t disrupt me unless our Queen calls.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘I understand, mum...I really am sorry for earlier.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘You’re going rabid, Kakra.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Glancing down at her whip launchers on her wrists, she raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like a desire for conflict was unique to her children. There was a lot of bloodshed in the days ahead, and it had been weeks since she’d seen any action of her own.</p><p>And you didn’t get to develop a Semblance like hers if you didn’t absolutely love being drenched in blood every now and again.</p><p>Soon. She could feel it.</p><p>The next battle was soon.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As Kakra hovered in the skies above Ikaksi and the surrounding forest, she couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows at the obvious signs of corruption that had begun to spread through the trees themselves. The sheer amount of Grimm blood and her mother’s aura soaking into the soil was practically starting to change the appearance of the landscape, as trees went dark grey and the soil began to take on the texture of ash.<br/>The piles of bodies didn’t help. Dozens of them, clearly sorted into different piles for some reason or another.</p><p>While Kakra wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about her sister yet, she couldn’t deny the girl was efficient. She couldn’t quite count how many villages must have been destroyed to collect the bodies that were piled up below her, since Telise would have only kept the most viable candidates. Humming impressed, she gently touched down in the central courtyard of the town that still served as their base of operations, and made her way through the numbers of her thrall siblings that were carrying bodies back and forth, or even sorting out basic supplies such as salvaged tools that could be repurposed into weapons.</p><p> </p><p>Making her way towards the town hall, she could feel the proximity of her sister, and she knew her sister would easily be able to feel her as well. The doors to the modest hall were open, and her siblings always stepped aside to give her a wide berth for her to pass through, her hands in her pockets as she constantly glanced around at everything that was being done.</p><p>Spotting her sister across the main room of the hall, the other woman had a large scroll in her hands and was typing in notes as she checked over different piles and organisations of materials, but she turned to face Kakra as she approached.</p><p>Stopping in front of her, Kakra gave a casual wave before putting her hand back into the pocket of her pants</p><p>“...sister.”</p><p>“Hello Kakra.”</p><p> </p><p>While the original host of Kakra had been young, in her late teens, Telise’s had been in her early-twenties. Slightly taller and curvier, Telise had the same pure-white skin that all of her siblings did, but where Kakra’s eyes were a mix of emerald and red, Telise’s were emerald and navy blue. Sharper features than her sister, she kept her shoulder-length black hair tied up in a basic ponytail, brushed and maintained to a beautiful shine. With the absence of wings, she was able to dress in proper clothes, and she took advantage of it with a simple white button-up and a knee-length black skirt, along with stockings and boots, looking every part to be perfectly ordinary unless you spent too long staring at her skin, and noticed the faint squirming tendrils underneath the surface.</p><p>An attempt by Delilah for being able to make her Screamer generation look more human while still being lethal, she lacked savage talons, instead her fingernails were neat and delicately polished black even though they were still razor-sharp and unbreakable. But she did have fangs that were far more elegant and pointed than her sister’s, since while Kakra had been made special by being given wings, Telise had been given an agonising venom.</p><p> </p><p>“What brings you here?” Telise regarded Kakra for a moment before turning back to her work, cataloguing the speed that healthy organs were being harvested and stored for preservation. Kakra’s voice always sounded savage and excitable, meanwhile Telise’s was as smooth as chocolate and shiver-inducingly seductive. “Has mother sent you for something?”</p><p>“I’ve been told to take you back to our Queen’s castle. The newest Huntress we’ve captured...<em> you </em> get to have a go at her.”</p><p>That made Telise pause, and she looked up at a far wall in thought before looking over at Kakra with raised eyebrows. “That’s...interesting. So you finally went to grab the Vale girl?”</p><p>“Never ended up getting her. Got her teammate though.”</p><p>“...which implies you were right near the Vale girl. Did you get them confused?” Raising an eyebrow, Telise otherwise stared at her sister impassively.</p><p>“...no. But the Angel girl was the only one in a state worth capturing.” Narrowing her eyes in annoyance, Kakra’s hand twitched at her side, but if Telise noticed she didn’t acknowledge it.</p><p>“I see. Not so surprising that it’s me our mother wants, our mother does prefer more patient approaches, and I doubt she herself was unreasonable with the girl. Her efforts will bear fruit, they always do. But why are <em> you </em>being passed over?”</p><p>Sucking in a breath through her teeth, Kakra crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes further at her unreadable sister. “I just...played with her a bit.”</p><p>“I thought the hosts of our generation needed to be intact in order to stand the best chance of surviving the process. They need the desire to live.” Thinking over it for a moment, Telise glanced around at her work before turning off her scroll and placing it on a nearby table, letting out a slow and quiet sigh. “But, if you failed even in your impulsivity, it makes sense why it’s my turn.”</p><p>“What’s <em> that </em>supposed to mean?” Kakra failed to keep the growl out of her voice, and simply glared as Telise walked past her, already heading out into the town square.</p><p>“Nothing at all, big sister.”<br/>“I thought you hated getting your hands dirty.” Kakra followed her out and spread her wings with an enthusiastic stretch, before rolling her shoulders and stepping behind her sister. “You’re not even that <em> good </em>at it.”</p><p>“I can’t destroy a village on my own like you can, or throw Huntsmen around like soft toys, that’s true.” Telise nodded to partially concede. “But I’m also able to recognise that if done right, it is possible to break things while only barely needing to touch them at all.”</p><p>“How would you know? You’re young. You’ve barely <em> fought </em>, let alone killed.”</p><p>“I’ve not killed more than eight people personally, and I’ve never tortured. But I’ve held a conversation. And from what I’ve thought of, the principle is similar.”</p><p> </p><p>Rolling her eyes behind her sister, Kakra scooped her up and soared up high into the air with a single beat of her wings, before starting the long flight back to the domain of darkness.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Angel was brought back to alertness once again when the door to her makeshift cell slid open. She’d been lying in complete silence and isolation for four hours, staring up at the roof, unable to fall asleep to get any rest, unable to do anything except look up and be lost in thoughts. The words and questions Delilah had said and posed rolled around in her mind, slightly more distorted every time she remembered them until eventually they had devolved to reveal the insanity that Angel knew was just under Delilah’s thin veneer of composure and reason.</p><p>It was easy to pose questions in such a way that it was hard to formulate answers, but it was just manipulation. Yet Delilah truly believed in what she was saying and doing.<br/>But she truly believed she was able to help, Angel had seen it in her eyes. She’d seen that look before, in other doctors and nurses. <br/>Such as herself.</p><p> </p><p>It made her feel just as ill as it made her feel curious. She couldn’t help the curiosity, she was a scientist.</p><p> </p><p>Opening her eyes again when the door slid open, she briefly froze and lost the ability to breathe when she spotted Kakra in the doorway, and before she could help herself a small whimper escaped her throat, and she saw Kakra smile in response and give a wink. But then Kakra stepped aside, and another woman entered without sparing Kakra a glance, not even acknowledging her as the door slid closed between them.</p><p>The new woman and Angel stared at each other for a few moments, the woman tilting her head slightly in curiosity as if she was looking for something in Angel’s eyes, but Angel refused to be the one to blink or look away first. Eventually however, as her eyes went dry and blurry, she had to, and as she squeezed her eyes shut in defeat she heard soft footsteps as the woman entered the room properly.</p><p> </p><p>Blinking her eyes open again, she sucked in a breath and glared. “And what are <em> you </em>going to do to me?”</p><p>“Nothing. I’m just here to talk.”</p><p> </p><p>The woman certainly didn’t look like Kakra did. No wings, no talons, no disfigured musculature. But it was still obvious she wasn’t human. Her sharp angles were too flawless, her pale white skin without blemish except for the faint writhing tendrils underneath her skin, but of course the main indicator was her eyes. The emerald green pulsing within them was something Angel knew she’d recognise on sight now, but she found her gaze drawn in by the swirling blue clouds underneath the surface.</p><p>Not seeming to mind being stared at, the woman moved away the trays from the slab and cleared space around it, tutting in disapproval as she quickly organised the several bowls and buckets, tidying the room with a once-over. Washing her hands in the basin when she was done, she turned back to Angel and gave a small polite smile.</p><p>“My name is Telise. I’m Delilah’s youngest daughter, making me Kakra’s little sister. I understand you’re Angel?...”</p><p> </p><p>Not answering straight away, Angel moved her eyes up and down Telise’s body slowly. Her overall form seemed to be relatively normal underneath her clothing, and the fact she was wearing tidy and normal clothes was jarring after the jeans and ripped tshirt that Kakra favoured, or Delilah’s elegant clothes and armour combination she wore.</p><p>“...why are you different?”</p><p>Raising her eyebrows slightly at Angel’s question, Telise tilted her head, her hands folded in front of herself politely. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Just...compared to Delilah and Kakra, you’re a bit…”</p><p>“Oh, of course.” Telise nodded in understanding, a small smile touching the corners of her mouth. “Despite its inefficiencies, my mother keeps returning to the human form for her children. I’m an attempt to make one of her children as inconspicuous as possible while also being as effective and developed as her standards demand.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding slowly in understanding, Angel shrugged with her eyebrows, keeping her voice level and as calm as possible. Telise radiated a completely different energy than Kakra did. It was far stronger, filling the room, but unlike the relentless hostile pressure of Kakra’s aura, which suffocated and squeezed, the pressure of Telise’s aura almost felt like a current of water washing over her in waves. Relentless, but not crushing. If Angel was honest, it was almost disarming, and she felt herself calm further and further. Telise had said she simply wanted to talk, and Angel found herself believing her.</p><p>“Well...I’d call it a success.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Telise smiled again at the compliment, gracefully making her way over to the slab Angel was tied to, standing up it enough that she was able to look directly down into Angel’s eyes. “You have the potential to be very beautiful, Angel. My mother is going to be able to unlock wonders on you during your evolution.”</p><p>“She’s <em> not </em>going to touch me.” Angel’s defenses immediately slammed back into place, and her eyes steeled into a hostile glare. “Something’s stopping her, otherwise she would have already.”</p><p>“Yes, but it’s a roadblock you can help her with. She knows she needs to remove your limiters in order for your evolution to work without risk. But without your limiters…”</p><p>As Telise trailed off, Angel smirked in a mixture of defiance and smug victory, and she shrugged, clenching and unclenching her fists. “She’d burn to ash, along with this entire building.”</p><p>“Exactly. Which is why she’ll need your assistance in order for the procedure to be done safely.”</p><p>“She’ll never get <em> anything </em> from me. The moment she tries to remove even <em> one </em> of them, there’ll be nothing left of her, I’ll make <em> sure </em>of it.” Angel snarled, viciously baring her teeth in hatred, and Telise slowly nodded in understanding.</p><p>“I believe you. But that just means I need to talk you around to it.”</p><p>Raising her eyebrows incredulously, the hostility vanished from Angel’s eyes as surprise took over. “You’re going to try to <em> talk </em>me into it? Into letting myself be mutilated?”</p><p>“Mutilated…” Telise frowned at the word, as if rolling it around on her tongue for a moment, before her expression returned to its composure and she nodded. “I am. By the time we’re done talking, you’ll be begging to evolve.”</p><p> </p><p>At the casual tone she said it with, and the sheer conviction and confidence behind it, Angel’s breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened slightly as a shiver of fear went through herself. Telise was so close to looking normal that it had been too easy to forget just what she was, and who she served. Nodding in satisfaction as Angel went still and silent, taking it as consent to continue, Telise stepped closer to the slab and reached down to softly and politely brush some of Angel’s hair away from her face and neck. “I think where you and I need to start, is by exploring why it is you’re opposed to it in the first place. This process is a bit intrusive, but we’ll go at your pace.”</p><p>With Angel completely frozen in fear under her touch, words caught in her throat at the casual confidence Telise had about breaking her, she only mildly tried to pull away when Telise opened her lips and her fangs extended slightly. Leaning down, Telise efficiently bit into the side of Angel’s neck, and allowed her venom to begin to pump directly into Angel’s veins.</p><p>Spasming at the stinging pain, Angel pulled away and strained as Telise straightened back up. Everything began to go foggy, but nothing hurt, it was as if everything instead simply began to ebb and swirl around inside of her mind. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she was only faintly aware of Telise speaking again.</p><p>“Alright. Let’s start at the beginning.”</p><p>Reaching back down with her hand, Telise’s eyes began to glow with her aura as she readied her Semblance in preparation, and as she touched two fingers to Angel’s forehead they both went completely and utterly still.</p><p> </p><p>Angel opened her eyes as quickly and as wide as possible a microsecond later, but as she looked around wildly she took a deep and panicked breath in when she realised she was no longer in the lab. Not only that, but she was standing upright, unstrapped and unbound. The lights of the fluorescents on the hospital ceiling above had her squint for a moment as they adjusted, after being in the shadows of the crystal castle for so long. Looking down at herself, she was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing while restrained, but the tears and rips Kakra had done to them were seamlessly repaired as if they had never existed.</p><p>The zap of a flickering light snapped her attention back to her surroundings, and as her eyes darted around the hospital corridor she was in she recognised immediately where she was, and her eyes widened in fear and anxiety. She was standing outside of a thick metal door, heavily reinforced. This corridor was a few levels below ground in the main hospital of the city of Haven, and there were only a few rooms, each one of them sealed with a heavy door she knew to be steel that was infused with hardlight dust to be practically indestructible.</p><p>They had originally been designed as bomb shelters to store vital equipment or patients too vulnerable to be evacuated, in case of another war.</p><p>But only one of them was in use these days.</p><p> </p><p>A voice next to her snapped her out of her gradually growing panic, and she looked next to herself where Telise was standing, her hands folded behind her back as she studied the door in front of them.</p><p>“Where are we, Angel?”</p><p>“I...this isn’t real. It’s not real.” Angel shook her head in rejection of what she was seeing, and she took a stumbling step back from the door, sliding a foot back as if expecting it to attack her at any moment. “This isn’t…”</p><p>“It isn’t real, no. It’s a memory.”</p><p>“...then let me out. Take me back. Wake me up. <strong><em>PLEASE.</em></strong>” Angel shook her head again wildly, her eyes darting to Telise, who was watching her with a calm and patient look. Telise shook her head, and gestured to the door.</p><p>“There’s something special about you, Angel. You’ve survived so much. Not even my sister could break you. You’ve got something inside of you. And according to what my Semblance has asked your aura, this right here is when and where it began. Once I understand, I'll let you out.”</p><p>“...<strong><em>please</em> </strong>don’t make me.”</p><p> </p><p>Angel’s voice was pathetically small, and she knew it, but Telise didn’t say a word or respond at all, simply standing still with her hand gesturing towards the door. After over a minute of complete stillness, Angel surrendered. Taking shaky steps towards the door again, her hand was quivering wildly as she reached out for the keypad and entered the code from memory, the blast door disengaging with a hiss as the numerous seals unlocked.</p><p>Putting her hand on the handle, she looked to Telise pleadingly one last time, but Telise merely looked towards the door. With a pained heave, Angel slowly swung open the massive door, revealing the reinforced room inside. Thick walls of dust-infused steel, the door itself was half a metre thick, and each wall was far thicker. What had originally been a barren storage space had been outfitted into a basic bedroom, with a simple bed, a computer, and bookcases filled with medical textbooks and journals.</p><p> </p><p>Inside, curled up on the bed fast asleep, was a much younger Angel.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Gambling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In pursuit of her own information, Chrystal once again goes about it with her own particular style, knowing she is the one best suited to get low-lifes and bandits to tell her what she wants to know. In the process a problem is revealed that Team SKTC have no way to stop or reverse;<br/>People know who they are, and they know where they are. And there's every chance they're coming.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p>When you’re trying to get your hands on information that the worst kinds of people aren’t likely going to be so willing to give up, there are three ways to go about doing it;<br/>You can pinch, punch, or pound.</p><p>Chrystal allowed herself some ego when she considered herself an expert at the first option. The brothers themselves were likely the only people who had any true idea of just how much she’d stolen over the years, ever since she became a teenager and graduated from chocolate and clothes, up to wallets and the contents of cash registers, and then eventually up to safe-cracking and breaking and entering. Not the shiniest criminal record in the world, but she’d never hurt anybody who couldn’t afford to lose it.<br/>But the sort of information she was looking for wasn’t the sort of information you could find by lifting it from someone’s pocket. They weren’t going to have an address and gps coordinates sitting on their scrolls, or on a convenient piece of paper in a file in an office somewhere, not in a town like this.</p><p>Back in Vale she might have come across something that convenient, but criminals had been different back there. They’d been polished, organised, relatively accountable. But the dealings of a bandit tribe definitely wouldn’t be.</p><p> </p><p>The second option, punching, was also something she had a fair bit of experience in, though it had been more Yang’s style than it had been her own. She was good in a fight even without her weapons, but only against people without awakened auras. It was pretty easy to beat information out of people or intimidate it out of them when they realised you were a trained warrior and not just another thug. But it wasn’t her preference, and thugs fought mean.<br/>She’d never really gotten hurt, barely ever taken a hit unless she was outnumbered too great an amount, but she’d never enjoyed it either. <br/>Bandits were the sort of people who you could communicate with through beating up, though. So if she found out who might know what she needed to know, and discussions failed, she had that option.</p><p> </p><p>And then there was pounding, and the two interpretations of the word. The first was drinking. Find the right bar and start throwing back strong booze with the right people, buying their drinks and getting just as hammered as they do, and they’ll start talking. Drunkenness is a bizarre equaliser, everyone considers fellow drunk people to be more on their level than they otherwise would if sober. People will punch above their weight, people will punch below it. People will aim for above their league, people will aim below it.<br/>And Chrystal could <em> definitely </em>handle her alcohol. While her aura being weaker than most meant that it didn’t burn it off as quickly as other Huntsmen managed to, she still burned through it quickly, but even without it she had practice and tolerance.</p><p>Then there was the second interpretation of pounding.<br/>Absolutely not her preference. But they were trying to find a missing girl who was potentially now a bandit more dangerous than anyone could comprehend, so desperate times…</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, she took a large sip of her drink and looked around the dive she’d found herself in. There was always at least one bar in every large town designated for the low-lifes to congregate at, and for every upstanding citizen to either avoid like the plague, or sometimes not even know about the existence of if it was the sort of dive that had been built in someone’s basement or an abandoned building or whatever. This place was above ground, which meant it was licensed, but all it took was a practiced glance around at the belts and boots of the patrons and it was obvious what you were walking into.</p><p>So it was just a matter of finding the outsiders, the criminals who clearly weren’t from town itself but had made their way in for a drink and a good time.</p><p>It had been quite a while since she’d done any information gathering on her own, apart from getting the initial information about Neo from working with Junior. Other than that, she’d always partnered with either Yang or Cypher whenever she needed a hand doing it. Yang helped with ‘punching’, and no-one apart from Chrystal herself was Cypher’s equal at pinching. It also just helped to have someone watching your back.<br/><br/>At the thought of her wounded and broken friend, and her dead ex-girlfriend, Chrystal gave a small salute with her glass and finished the rest of her drink, before raising her finger for another one. While Cypher would never have to fight again, she had no doubt that Yang wouldn’t be able to stay out of the action forever, it just wasn’t who she was. Though Chrystal had never seen that shattered glass in her eyes before, the way she’d looked in her room in Patch the two times she’d visited her. Yang had been <em>broken</em>. <br/>But we break, we get back up. They’d all have to, if they were to survive the times to come.</p><p>Opening her scroll from her pocket, she checked the date, and gave a small smile with one corner of her mouth.</p><p>Ruby and the surviving members of JNPR had almost certainly begun their own journey across Remnant by now if they were sticking to the schedule that Ruby had been considering the last time they’d spoken when Chrystal had gone to say goodbye. They were a couple of months behind, but it meant that they’d avoid the worst of the frost which had been making SKTC’s trip so draining and difficult, and would instead have the warmer and brighter weather guiding their path.<br/>If Chrystal and the others got <em> very </em>lucky in the next few days and both found Rowena and somehow quickly talked the woman into coming with them, they’d still beat Ruby and her friends to Haven, even though they were pretty far off course since they’d had to head to Ywitawa.</p><p>But that required them getting lucky, so all Chrystal could do was sit and wait until someone took the bait. She was a relatively cute young woman in a dive bar, sipping hard spirit with her jacket unzipped, in the early evening, in the sort of place that bandits came to in order to blow off some steam. It was only a matter of time.</p><p>It truly only was. She’d only been in the bar twenty-minutes when a man slid onto the barstool next to her and bought her a drink.</p><p> </p><p>Smiling in thanks as she sipped it, not breaking eye contact with him as she did so, she placed the glass down on the countertop and lightly ran her fingertip around the rim of it lazily.</p><p>“Thanks. Been on the road without a good drink for far too many weeks now. I’ve been going crazy.”</p><p>...not strictly a lie. She had been.</p><p>The man, actually rather handsome with a face almost as scarred as hers was, gave a sympathetic smile and a nod, taking the opportunity to try and discreetly run his eyes up and down her. Despite her mission, she couldn’t help but smile a little wider.<br/>So her scars weren’t <em> that </em>bad after all. But then, the man was a bandit, he was likely used to far worse. Which was strangely comforting.</p><p>“I get that. Rarely get the chance for anything good either. Name’s Candela.”</p><p>“Chrysalis.” Taking his hand when he offered it, Chrystal noticed him react to the calluses on her hands, formed from years of fighting. But instead of being put off like a lot of men would have been, he smiled. “A traveler yourself huh?”</p><p>“All of my life. What brings you across the sea?”</p><p>“Looking for work, not much around since Vale went down.”</p><p>Letting out a sigh of agreement, Candela took a long sip from his drink, keeping his eyes on her as he did so. “Can’t imagine. Things have been tough out here for years, but what happened to Vale...rough shit, that. You look like you had a pretty tough time of it.”</p><p>“Tougher than most.” Despite wanting him to hear it, it still came out as a mutter, and she looked down into her glass for a moment. Flicking her eyes back up to him, she gave a miniscule shrug. “But I survived. And here I am.”</p><p>“Looking to get right back into action. That takes guts. And a purpose.”</p><p>“A purpose, hmm?” Raising her eyebrows, Chrystal leant forward slightly, playing with her glass by spinning it slowly. She gave a small smile. “Is that what it takes to survive out here? Does that mean you have one?”</p><p>Smiling back, Candela shrugged, finishing his glass and openly flicking his state up and down her with an appreciative glint in his eyes. “Do what it takes to survive, and enjoy what surviving means.”</p><p>“Does doing what it takes to survive include a bit of getting rough?”</p><p>“You know it, sweetheart. I can see in your face you know how life is once the first dominoes fall.” Confidently leaning on the counter, Candela raised an eyebrow. “So what about you? What’s your purpose?”</p><p>“Right now? I’m…” Finding herself thinking over the question a bit more deeply than she was planning to, Chrystal looked up at the roof as she mulled over the answer.</p><p>What <em> was </em> her purpose now? Sure she was looking for the Maiden and getting her to Haven to protect the city, but that’s not a <em> purpose </em> , that’s an <em> objective. </em> So what was her purpose underneath it? <br/>Back in Beacon her purpose had felt like it was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong and enjoying her time there, and using the talents that developed in order to make her better at her job.<br/>Was she an actual Huntress now? Was it her purpose to do this sort of high-stakes work for the rest of her life? <br/>Was that even what she <em> wanted? </em></p><p>But wanted or not, it was what she was going to do.</p><p>“I guess I’m a bit aimless right now. My friends and I are in town looking for someone. Family friend, but not of mine. Last we heard she was causing a bit of mischief in the area.” Letting herself grin cheekily, she finished her own glass. “They’re here for her, meanwhile I...like mischief. Can’t judge a girl for missing it.”</p><p>...was that strictly a lie either? She <em> did </em>miss it. Badly.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Focus, Chrysal.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Looking for someone, huh? Well best of luck finding them. But I doubt you came to a bar thinking you’d find them here.” Lowering his voice, Candela raised an eyebrow, and Chrystal felt her own eyes flash as she raised an eyebrow of her own.</p><p>“No, no I didn’t…I was hoping to find someone who could point me in the right direction. I guess I got a little distracted.”</p><p>“I’m meant to be on business as well, but I guess I’m a bit distracted too.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment, Chrystal moved her eyes up and down him, taking in his outfit and build. He was clearly a fighter, built for endurance a lot like Lelise of team LAVA, and a pair of dust-spiked knuckledusters on his belt had her raise an eyebrow. So he was a brawler, and from the quality of his rather haphazard outfit he was a decent one.</p><p>She hummed in curiosity.</p><p>“And what’s your business meant to be...?”</p><p>Seeming to consider her for a few moments, Candela came to a decision from whatever reading he got of her. So he rose from his stool. “If you’re fine with a bit of rough, I don’t mind showing you. I think you might like the spectacle.”</p><p>“That’s more threatening than you might think it is.” Chrystal rose as well, crossing her arms over her chest to draw his eyes down with the movement, and she was satisfied when his eyes grew heated for a moment.</p><p>“When was the last time you were in a brawl?”</p><p>“One that deliberately didn’t end in someone dying? Before the fall.”</p><p> </p><p>Having her suspicions already about what he was talking about, she didn’t hesitate to follow him as he smirked and turned to lead her away. Stepping out of the bar and into the evening sky, she resisted the urge to zip up her jacket any further, and confidently walked by his side as he started to lead her out of the town limits and into the trees slightly. While normally she’d be suspicious, she could see the flickering torches dotted around to give low light, clearly marking some sort of trail.</p><p>Five minutes into the treeline, and she could hear the sound of jeering and shouting from an excited crowd. Her suspicion confirmed, she felt a thrill of anticipation go through herself at what was to come, letting Candela wrap an arm around her waist and his fingers slide slightly under her jacket and tank top to slightly rest on her bare skin.<br/>Stepping out into the clearing, she grinned at the fighting ring.</p><p>Fighting pits weren’t strictly illegal, they were just heavily frowned upon, and even if they <em> were </em> illegal it wasn’t like there was anyone around to enforce the laws anymore. Even if there were enough local guards to even come close to threatening the activities of a bandit tribe, they likely wouldn’t dare, not so far out in the wilderness and so outnumbered. <br/>So the fighting pit was busy, and energetic, as pair by pair brawlers took to the makeshift arena to throw punches and kicks until one of them went down. The dirt was churned up into mud and splattered with blood, grass torn up from the chaos, and plenty of brawlers were bloodied and beaten outside the ring already, the night’s matches having clearly started a little while ago already.</p><p> </p><p>Stopping just on the edge of the clearing, Candela looked to Chrystal next to him and gave a proud and almost savage grin.</p><p>“<em> This </em>is my business, sweetheart.”</p><p>“And here I worried you’d be boring…” Practically purring the words out, Chrystal giggled and pressed further into his side as the adrenaline in the air from the fighting soaked into her skin. She wasn’t sure how much of her own behaviour was an act anymore, and she didn’t particularly care. “It’s been far too fucking long.”</p><p>Laughing, Candela confidently pressed an amused kiss to the side of her neck, and the surprise made her gasp, before he began to lead her towards a group of people who were clearly his comrades in charge of the matches.</p><p>“Come on. Let’s stay a while?”</p><p>“Definitely…”</p><p>As they approached the group of bandits, they were both noticed, and Candela got a few greetings while she got plenty of glances, many of them appreciative, and she smiled wider at the energy in the air. Candela quickly introduced her, rattling off names.</p><p>“We’ve got Hunter, Pearl, Redwood. These are the guys in charge of making sure nobody kills each other without explicit permission.”</p><p>Nodding and smiling to the two men and one woman, Chrystal flicked her eyes up and down each one of them quickly, taking stock of them. All three of them looked as if they could handle themselves well, but she could tell just from their eyes that none of them had an unlocked aura, simply just talented fighters.</p><p>Candela continued, guiding Chrystal forward gently past the trio, clasping Pearl’s hand briefly in greeting as he went past, and he led Chrystal to a duo of women. One was watching the match intently with scrutinising eyes, while the other was in conversation with a member of the crowd who had approached her, and had handed her a bundle of lien with a slip of paper.</p><p>So she was the one in charge of the bets themselves.</p><p>Unable to help herself, Chrystal’s experienced eyes picked out the box of lien and paper slips nearby, and her eyes widened at the sheer amount of cash inside of it. These guys were...<em> very </em>profitable, by the looks of things.</p><p>As Candela approached, the woman watching the matches looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. Even in the low light of the evening, lit by flickering torches, she was actually a rather handsome girl. Looking to only be a couple of years older than Chrystal herself, she was slightly shorter, with skin that was almost as tanned but not quite. Spiky brown hair, a tattoo on her left arm, and a tattered vest with a turned up collar, she couldn’t have looked more like a bandit if she wanted to.</p><p>But if the slight glow in her eyes was any indication, she <em> definitely </em>had an awakened aura, and she held herself as if she was well-trained.</p><p>The woman’s eyes moved from Candela to Chrystal, and met her stare intensely for a moment before taking in her appearance with the stare of someone experienced at summing up fighters. Seeming to approve of what she saw, she ran her eyes along Chrystal again, this time less professionally and her eyes lingering on the exposed skin, and Chrystal’s scar, before she looked to Candela again with an approving smirk and a suggestive wink, and looked back to the fight without speaking a word.</p><p>“Don’t mind Vernal, she’s a bitch.” Saying it loud enough for Vernal to hear, Candela grinned when Vernal gave him the finger over her shoulder without turning to look at him again. The volume he said it with had the other woman look up from where she was counting the money she’d been handed.</p><p>This second girl was ‘beautiful’ where Vernal was ‘handsome’, with long dark red hair that had streaks of white through it tied up in a bun, large eyes, and almost royal features. Looking to be the same age as the other girl, maybe twenty or twenty-one, she was soft featured but well-muscled. Sparkling blue eyes of an impossible colour, full lips, tanned skin as dark as Chrystal’s own, and dressed in dark grey leathers with golden trim, she gave Chrystal a disarmingly dazzling smile.</p><p>“Well! I send you to find me more fighters and you bring back a view. Who’s this, Candela?”</p><p>“This is Chrystal, she’s passing through town looking for a bit of mischief and I figured…”</p><p>“That you’d show off our operation? Attempt to woo her with the spectacle?” The woman raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms in amusement. “She’s a Huntsman, I doubt she’s a stranger to a fight.”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking, Chrystal’s mouth opened slightly as a shock of fear at her discovery went through her, and she felt Candela’s hand tense on her waist. The woman’s eyes flicked to hers and a satisfied smirk appeared in the corners of her mouth, and she gave a slow wink.</p><p> </p><p>“No need for a panic, sweetie.” The woman took stock of Chrystal quickly, a satisfied smile tickling the corner of her mouth as she stepped forward and offered her hand. “I’m Lexica Tillandsia, and if mischief is what you’re after you’re in the right place. Beacon?”</p><p>“Beacon. I’m Chrysalis.” Chrystal extended her hand, and was surprised when Lexica clasped her arm like a warrior instead of shaking her hand, but she confidently clasped back, and Lexica’s eyes sparkled in satisfaction.</p><p>“...I know that nickname. Vytal Tournament.” Lexica released Chrystal’s arm and rested a hand on her hip. Taking stock of Chrystal again, she bit her bottom lip. “Now I see it. Didn’t recognise you with the scar, and you’re not in black and white this time. Made a fortune off of you, sweetie. The odds weren’t in your favour, but I know a gem when I see it. Pompous pricks in Atlas <em> always </em>underestimate the cheeky ones.”</p><p>Feeling her cheeks go pink slightly at the comment and the praise, Chrystal couldn’t help the confident smirk that appeared on her face, and she pressed further into Candela’s side, the man looking at her in a new light, his eyes fiery. Winking up at him, she looked back to Lexica.</p><p>“You’re welcome. Happy to help.”</p><p>“Oh I appreciate it. You shooting Lillian Vale in the head bought me this coat.” Lexica did a dramatic spin and flourish of her black and gold tailcoat, giving an increasingly pleased and fond grin. “So you’re more than welcome here. Now, Candela is dumb enough to fall for the wiles of an unzipped jacket and a girl who can handle her drink, but there’s a reason I’m in charge. What do you <em> really </em>want?”</p><p>“I’m looking for someone.”</p><p>“Just you? Or are your team here too?”</p><p>“Is that important?”</p><p>“Well I doubt they’d approve of your...current activities.” Lexica winked to Candela next to her, before shrugging at Chrystal and gesturing towards the fighting ring where the most recent match had just ended. </p><p>Seeing Lexica busy in conversation, Pearl had taken over distributing the winnings, and Lexica gave her a nod of thanks as an impressive slip of lien was put into her hand.<br/>Every passing moment, Chrystal found herself more and more fascinated but also more and more intimidated by the girl in front of her. She knew what she was doing.</p><p>“They’re in town, they’ve got their own business. They know I like my nights to myself, and they gave up trying to get me back under control in the first year of school.”</p><p>“Good girl. Well, how about we step into my office?” Lexica smirked and gestured to a couple of trees a few paces away, far enough away from the crowd and the others that they wouldn’t be overheard.</p><p> </p><p>Biting her bottom lip, Chrystal looked to Candela next to him and gave him a wink, stepping away slowly enough that he could grin and trail his hand along her skin for every inch of physical contact he could get before she was out of his reach. The energy in the air, what she was up to, the type of people around her...it was getting to her, and she knew it.</p><p>She didn’t feel fuzzy or foggy.</p><p>She felt…</p><p>She felt…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Alive. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Joining Lexica over by the trees, Chrystal rested a hand on her hip and leant against one of the trees while Lexica kept her hands behind her back, regarding Chrystal playfully.</p><p>“Alright, what are you after?”</p><p>“You think you can help me?”</p><p>“If I don’t know how to help you then I’m certain someone here will, and everything...<em> everything </em>...can be gambled for.”</p><p> </p><p>Thinking over it for a moment, Chrystal grinned, and she could <em> feel </em>the vicious and energetic curve to it, and she nodded. At whatever look she had on her face, Lexica grinned back and straightened slightly.</p><p>“There it is, I know that look. Knew you’d have it inside you. Alright, let’s talk stakes. What do you want?”</p><p>“I’m looking for a girl. Rowena. Evidence <em> points </em>to her being involved with a…” Chrystal tilted her head playfully, her eyes sparkling. “A group of troublemakers.”</p><p>“Oh? Is that so?” Lexica smiled back, but her expression was suddenly unreadable, both relaxed and sealed at the same time. “Information like that is always easy to be wagered, since nothing material is lost.”</p><p>“Do you know her?”</p><p>“I know the name. Haven’t heard it in a while though. <em> Or </em>seen her.” Sighing, Lexica was already shaking her head apologetically, only to raise her eyebrows when Chrystal persisted.</p><p>“So you know where she at least <em> was </em>. She’s one of you. I knew it.” Chrystal couldn’t stop the flash of frustration and disappointment that went through her eyes. Part of her had held up hope that Kylar had been wrong about the damage they’d been finding in towns. Clearly not… “We need to talk to her.”</p><p>“That, I can’t wager.” Lexica said regretfully, scrunching up the corner of her mouth apologetically. “I don’t know where she is. But...I <em> can </em> offer something you <em> might </em>find useful.”</p><p>“Which is?”</p><p>“I can tell you who was probably the last person to see her.”</p><p>Sucking in a breath and letting it out slowly, Chrystal clenched her fist in frustration for a moment, but not frustration at Lexica herself. Bookies trade on trust and honesty, otherwise nobody would trust them with their money, so the woman wouldn’t lie about something like that.<br/>Relaxing her fist, she noticed that Lexica caught the tell, and she flinched, before holding back another flinch when she saw Lexica notice that as well.</p><p>“Can you get us an introduction…?”</p><p>At that particular request, Chrystal watched as Lexica went still, and as unreadable as she was it was clear she was off in thought. Over a minute passed of Lexica debating with herself before the girl let out a wince.</p><p>“That would be dangerous.”</p><p>“It’s necessary.”</p><p>“...life-threatening dangerous. They’re not someone to take lightly.”</p><p>“Who is, these days.” Chrystal rolled her eyes, making it clear she got the message. She was expecting Lexica to scold or push, but instead the other girl raised an eyebrow and hummed in interest.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, let’s say I agree. What can <em> you </em>offer?”</p><p>At that, Chrystal merely laughed, since it was <em> unbelievably </em> obvious what Lexica wanted. Lexica gave her a grin and spread her hands playfully. Rolling her eyes, still with a wide smile on her face, Chrystal removed her weapon harness and unzipped her jacket entirely, pulling it off.<br/>“Who am I fighting?”</p><p>“Some of the regular high-rollers are likely going to recognise you, so let’s make it a real spectacle. How many can you handle at once?” Lexica looked over the crowd of her fighters that were gathered in a group just outside of the ring, separated from the gamblers and the crowd that were just here to watch and observe.</p><p>“Been a long time since a woman’s been brave enough to ask me <em> that </em>question.”</p><p> </p><p>At the sheer way Chrystal slipped out the comment, filled to the brim with playful energy, Lexica’s head whipped back to her with raised eyebrows as Chrystal was stretching her arms and pulling on her gloves. They met stares for a moment, the adrenaline in Chrystal’s system giving her the bravery to not look away, and a playful smile emerged on Lexica’s features.</p><p>“Cheeky.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Sweeping the leg out from underneath the man as he tried to take a swing for her jaw, Chrystal easily grabbed his arm on his way down and twisted it so he landed brutally, a swift kick to his poorly positioned head driving him deeply unconscious. Dropping his arm, Chrystal immediately had to flip out of the way of the kick aimed straight at her ribs from behind, and she spun to face her attacker, bringing her hands up at the ready.</p><p>The roaring of the crowd was unbelievable as they crowded around the small muddy arena, where three men and two women already laid unconscious, the last two men had been standing back, taking her in and summing her up, and now that there weren’t any other distractions they were finally ready to get involved and face her. Despite the horrific condition of some of her opponents, Chrystal herself was as untouched as she always was, apart from the mud splattered across her legs and the streaks of her opponents blood on her fists and arms, even drops on her face from where she’d broken flesh at close range.</p><p>No-one was allowed to die in the ring unless it was an official death match, which were incredibly rare, so she had made sure not to deliver anything lethal, but she’d been making sure to be flashy just to give the crowd a show. Her natural fighting style was flashy anyway, with how agile and acrobatic she was, and just like it had in the Vytal Tournament it made for a spectacle for a bloodthirsty crowd. While none of the high-rollers had bet against her, all of them recognising her from the tournament, most of the locals and other bandits had underestimated her just like she’d known they would, especially when they were told it was going to be a seven-on-one.</p><p>Rolling her shoulders unnecessarily, she raised her eyebrows at the two men who were still standing back, seeing it in the eyes of one of them that he was about to make his move. The moment he charged, she did as well, and it was a simple matter of kicking off the ground and soaring up above his head, landing on his shoulders and twisting her thighs around his neck and head, bending down and grabbing his leg, and bringing him down to the ground with a loud crash and a spray of mud from the force of the impact.</p><p>When his skin sparked with aura, she couldn’t stop the grin that came across her face.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Finally.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Kicking off of him and flipping back to her feet, she was easily in time to knock aside the punches of the other man who charged in, either brushing aside or redirecting his punches and kicks as he pressed her. He was good, he was fast, but she’d fought far faster.<br/>A brief memory of pink hair went through her mind, and she ground her foot into the dirt to stop in her retreat before grabbing his approaching wrist, jarring it into a lock, and delivering a knee to his gut with enough force his aura sparked once again. Slightly more brutal than her usual, but the twinge in her head had done enough.</p><p>As he doubled over she brought her elbow up and dropped it down onto his head, disappointed when his aura shattered so quickly, and she hopped back before snapping her foot out and knocking his lights out with a sharp blow to the side of his skull.</p><p>By this time, the final man had returned to his feet, and she watched as his yellow aura stabilised. Humming in satisfaction, she raised her eyebrows at him in challenge, and he responded by growling and coming for her. Unable to stop herself from grinning in enjoyment as she ducked and dodged away from an impressive series of blows, she could see her joy was enraging him further, and it simply made her smile wider.</p><p>With things brought down to a one-on-one, the crowd were completely fixated at the last couple of minutes of action, Chrystal giddily on the retreat the entire time as she let him wear himself out trying to hit her but none of his attacks being even remotely fast enough. There were moments in some brawls, brief ones, where Chrystal found herself wishing she could deactivate her Semblance sometimes, just to make things a bit more interesting.</p><p>But she couldn’t, so the man’s attacks were almost in slow motion according to her reflexes, and to a sharper observer it would sometimes seem like she was moving to avoid attacks even before he’d started swinging them.</p><p>All good things come to an end, and eventually the man was panting and out of breath, so Chrystal bounced on her feet a few times. Swinging her foot for his ribs, she was impressed that he managed to knock it aside, the rage in his face burning with almost a hatred, and her eyes widened at the flash of steel that had appeared in his other hand. The knife pulled from his pocket was a simple one, but it was long and clearly well maintained, but even with the help he wasn’t fast enough, pushing for her with a series of savage slices towards her gut in an effort to practically disembowel her.</p><p>Narrowing her eyes at him and glaring, she brought her foot up and kicked straight into his swinging wrist, overpowering his momentum, before hopping feet and continuing her own in order to drive her other foot right into his ribs where she’d wanted to hit him before.</p><p> </p><p>His aura sparked violently as he was sent sprawling, but he kept a hold on the knife and came for her again with wide eyes, only to be stumbled in his tracks as a whip wrapped around his wrist holding the blade and pulled him off balance, yanking the blade out of his hands</p><p>As he stumbled off balance, Lexica stepped into the ring, the crowd parting for her as she brought her whip around again and slashed it into the man’s legs to send him down into the mud, Chrystal looking between the two of them with adrenaline-fuelled but otherwise curious eyes.</p><p>“You know the rules, Carmine.” Her voice calm and composed, Lexica stared down at the pained man, bringing her whip around and snapping it into his chest hard enough his aura shattered.</p><p>A simple flick of her wrist had her whip wrapping itself up neatly in her hand, and she turned to Chrystal who was approaching, brushing mud from her face, and her eyes frustrated but otherwise seemingly unbothered.</p><p>“That was annoyingly unexpected.” Narrowing her eyes down at a still pained Carmine, Chrystal stood next to Lexica and folded her arms. The crowd had fallen completely silent, but adrenaline and bloodlust was palpable enough in the air that Chrystal was practically vibrating.</p><p>“He escalated things to a death match without permission. Which means he’s disqualified. So, he lost a death match, there’s an obvious price to that.” Lexica’s voice was deadened as she raised her eyebrows at Chrystal, glancing to Carmine and then back to her. “You can do it, if you want. You won.”</p><p>Hesitating, Chrystal’s eyes widened at the implications, and she looked down at Carmine, who seemed strangely drained and exhausted. She’d worn him out, but not so much he wouldn’t be able to stand. Looking back to Lexica, Chrystal opened and closed her mouth a few times before shrugging.</p><p>“I’m not bothered. He wouldn’t have managed to hit me. He’s fine.”</p><p>“Maybe he wouldn’t have, point is he tried. I can’t have people pulling that shit in my arena.”</p><p> </p><p>Lexica reached out with her free hand and pressed on Chrystal to take a few steps back, before with two simple movements of her wrist she flicked her whip to wrap around Carmine’s neck, and with the second strong flick she easily added enough force that everyone in the crowd heard the wet sound of Carmine’s neck snapping, and he dropped dead into the mud, keeling over.</p><p>The bloodlust in the crowd soared to a new height, and the cheering immediately began again, only for Lexica to look around at the crowd with raised eyebrows. Without seeing any sign or source, Chrystal felt a wave of weight and numbness wash over her body, and her own adrenaline and bloodlust vanished almost instantly, as if it was dripping out of her like liquid.</p><p>As the pressure continued, she found herself feeling heavy enough she dropped to her own knees just like Carmine had, as the bloodlust vanished from the crowd entirely and everyone instead stood somber and weighed down.</p><p>Even though Lexica wasn’t moving a muscle apart from keeping her eyes moving back and forth over the crowd, Chrystal could feel it rolling out from her with weighted waves. Each pulse had her feeling heavier, and fuzzier, as the damned fog threatened to crawl out of the corners of her mind that she tried to seal it away into during every day of her life. But the shadows of the late evening were seemingly growing longer as the seconds passed.</p><p>She must have clearly given some sign, as Lexica’s eyes flicked to her, and Chrystal saw the faintest glimmer of surprise and then guilt before the weight immediately vanished from her.</p><p>Sucking in a final deep breath and letting it out, Chrystal managed to straighten up and shake her head, clearing the first signs of the fuzz that had threatened to wrap over herself for the first time in a couple of nights.</p><p> </p><p>Lexica looked back to the crowd.</p><p>“Next person who pulls a stunt like that, I’ll make you fight matches until your heart stops. Been a long time since one of you lost your senses like that.” Gradually releasing her Semblance, Lexica turned away from the crowd and locked eyes with Pearl, and gestured to the unconscious bodies and the corpse in the ring. “Clean up. Next match in five minutes. Vernal, look after things, I’ve got business.”</p><p>“You got it, babe.” Sighing, Vernal approached the crowd, which was gradually growing louder again as the nerves returned and the idea of the next match reignited the buzz in the air.</p><p>Chrystal put her hands into the pockets of her pants as she followed Lexica out of the ring, the other girl hooking her whip back onto her belt where it had been hidden underneath her coat, hidden well enough that not even Chrystal had seen it.<br/>They reached where Lexica’s stuff was organised, and the girl flipped open the money chest as Chrystal pulled her jacket back on and zipped it back up, before grabbing her weapon harness as well.</p><p> </p><p>Lexica spoke over her shoulder as she counted out money. “I just killed a man in arm’s reach of you and you didn’t even twitch.”</p><p>“I’ve killed before.” Shrugging, Chrystal put her hands into her jacket pockets as she stood casually and nonchalantly. In truth, even she was a bit bothered by how...well, unbothered she’d been at Carmine’s death. But she really, <em> really </em>didn’t want to think about it.</p><p>“Oh. Of course.” Nodding, Lexica paused for only a moment before continuing to sort through the money. Her voice was slightly quieter when she spoke next. “The fall of Beacon.”</p><p>“Yep. Shit night.” Her voice gradually becoming more dismissive and noncommittal, Chrystal looked off at a nearby tree and shifted where she was standing. This, was a topic she tried to avoid with strangers at all costs. But it was also one that people seemed determined to bring up the moment they heard her accent and saw her weapons.</p><p>“And since then? While you’ve been on the road?”</p><p>“A couple of times.” Chrystal kept her face and voice both as blank and nonchalant as possible as she gave her dismissal, despite the sudden explosion of black oil she felt inside of her own blood, no longer able to be kept locked away through sheer dismissive willpower.</p><p> </p><p>Any normal person would have been horrified at what Lexica had done, even a common criminal. But...death felt so commonplace now, after everything. She knew the other three were still troubled by it, still hated fighting for their lives, though Shina was practically as used to it as she was. But she just...didn’t notice anymore.</p><p>When had <em> that </em>started?...</p><p>Swallowing down the rabbit hole that was that train of thought as what Qrow Branwen had said to her whispered in her skull, she raised an eyebrow at Lexica’s back and switched it around.</p><p>“But, <em> you </em> just <em> killed </em>the man without even twitching either.”</p><p>“Well, I’ve been in this life a long time. You get used to it, or you don’t survive.” Straightening, Lexica whistled to get Pearl’s attention and chucked him the tightly bound bundle of lien for him to catch, before turning to Chrystal properly. “I didn’t mean to affect you with my Semblance as badly as I did. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment, Chrystal saw the briefest flicker of guilt in Lexica’s eyes, but mostly they were just filled with apprehension. She was studying Chrystal, looking for something, but whatever it was Chrystal didn’t have the slightest idea.</p><p>Shaking her head, Chrystal shrugged. “Don’t be. Just wasn’t expecting...something like that. What <em> was </em>that?”</p><p>Wincing, Lexica rested her hands on her hips in thought, biting her bottom lip. “...you ever heard of a type of Grimm called the ‘Apathy’?”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>Gesturing with her hands as if that explained everything, Lexica gave a small apologetic smile, her eyes flicking over as the next fight started in the ring with Vernal’s supervision. Chrystal nodded after a moment as she thought she understood, frowning in thought.</p><p>“That….must come in handy.”</p><p>“Helps calm down the crowd if they get too worked up, like you saw. Stops Grimm being drawn in too easily by the bloodlust and adrenaline. Also helps me de-escalate fights that boil out of control. Well, normally.” Nodding in agreement, Lexica shrugged, taking her hands from her hips and instead crossing her arms over her chest. “If I could pick and choose specifically, I would have left you out of it. I want you to know that. I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Unsure how to respond, Chrystal merely nodded in understanding, before raising her eyebrow and waiting for Lexica to speak again, the other girl taking her time in summing Chrystal up and coming to a decision, narrowing her eyes and letting out a cautious breath.</p><p>“Well, you won, and a wager is a wager. You and your team staying at the main tavern in town?”</p><p>Chrystal nodded, and Lexica ran the tip of her tongue along her top lip in thought as she seemed to come to a series of decisions, and she tightened her arms across her chest stressfully. “I can get you that meeting tomorrow. I’ll come get you in the morning to lead you the way. I can’t promise you’ll leave alive, but you’ll have your introduction.”</p><p>“Good enough. The four of us can handle the getting out alive part.” Chrystal gave a confident grin, and Lexica smiled back, but it wasn’t as confident as her usual ones, and it had Chrystal cautious. “Who is it?”</p><p>“Our tribe leader herself.” Lexica sighed, almost as if she was apologising for it being the truth. “Raven.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Tacita was sitting up in the room she was sharing with Kylar, spinning the larger of the two raven feathers between her fingers, when she heard the unmistakable sound of Kylar’s and Shina’s footsteps ascending the stairs, and she didn’t even wait for them to knock before sliding the feather back between the pages of the book she’d taken from Rowena’s and making her way over to open the door, neither of the men surprised that she’d been able to tell they would be there before they even knocked.</p><p>The two of them looked to have been deep in thought, clearly only part of the way through a conversation, but Kylar still took a momentary break to press a soft kiss to Tacita’s lips that she was more than happy to return, smiling warmly at him for a moment before it faded to a concerned frown at the concerned shadows in his eyes.</p><p>Closing the door as the two men found places in the room to get comfortable, Tacita clicked the lock shut and gave them both a curious stare, none of them seeming to be the first to break whatever spell of silence was over the room and keeping everyone in their own thoughts. It was only broken when Kylar glanced down at the small table in the room and his eyes scanned over Rowena’s papers that Tacita had taken from her house.</p><p>“...what’s this?”</p><p>“I’m still trying to figure that out.” Tacita made her way over and stood next to her boyfriend, the two of them looking down at the papers for a moment, before she looked between him and Shina, who was leaning against one of the walls with his eyes closed in thought. “Did you find her family?”</p><p>“Only her grandparents are left, we spoke to her grandmother.” Shina didn’t open his eyes as he answered, but he raised his eyebrows, though he didn’t sound particularly thrilled. So, Tacita frowned.</p><p>“Has she been seen alive?”</p><p>“I’m guessing her house was as abandoned as her grandmother suggested it might be, then?”</p><p>“I’m still trying to put all of that one together. It’s...hard to explain.” Tacita sighed, before raising her eyebrows and finally bringing attention to the box underneath Kylar’s arm. “Something of Rowena’s?”</p><p>“Actually no!” Kylar gave a sigh through a frustrated smile, bringing the once again sealed box up from under his arm to place it down on the table. “Something partially belonging to my father, and also belonging to Shina’s dad’s teammate.”</p><p>“<em>Shina’s</em> dad’s…?” Tacita trailed over, glancing over at Shina, who nodded without opening his eyes. Looking back down at the box as Kylar finished drawing in the right dust to open it, she blinked as it clicked open and the wrapped bundle was revealed.</p><p> </p><p>Tentatively reaching down, Tacita gently lifted the bundle from the box and unwrapped it carefully, her frown deepening when the cover of the large thick tome appeared. Placing the book down on the table, she studied the sigil on the cover, the sigil of a blank theatre mask, and lightly ran her fingertips over it. In the corner of her memory, something sparked, but when she attempted to reach for it it slipped away.</p><p>Standing next to her, Kylar crossed his arms and looked to her, waiting to see if she had any insights as she delicately opened the cover, her lips slightly moving along with each word as she read them.</p><p>“Kaskol Liseran…” Running her fingertips over the name written on the page, Tacita glanced over at Shina. “Team BLLD was your father’s team, I gather?”</p><p>“And just knowing that, completely expends my total knowledge of his time as a Huntsman.” Sighing, Shina finally opened his eyes, looking down at the timber floor in frustration. “Dad’s been retired for years. Since I was a kid. Rowena only vanished three years ago, and yet she still had that book.”</p><p>“Not only that, but <em> my </em>father knew about it. Knew enough to lock it away in a box that only a concentration of every type of dust could unlock. So, a Goroesi Semblance-”</p><p>“Or a Maiden’s powers.” Tacita finished his thought for him, and he nodded. </p><p> </p><p>Biting the inside of her bottom lip in curiosity, Tacita flipped through the first few pages just to scan them, not reading any particular words. Despite the handwriting and the lack of any particular formatting, it didn’t come across entirely like a journal, but it also wasn’t entirely like any other sort of book either. Massive chunks of text in miniscule handwriting, diagrams and sketches, numbers…</p><p>It was a journal, textbook, research paper, and handwritten encyclopedia all in one.</p><p>Definitely fitting the descriptor of <em> ‘compendium’ </em>.</p><p>“Okay. We’ll start to give it a proper read later.” Tacita closed the cover gently, and tapped her fingers on it again in thought for a few moments. “Do we know when Chrystal might be back?”</p><p>“The sorts of people she’ll be trying to find won’t start to become visible until dark. Give her time.” Shina glanced out the window at the evening sky, the sun already gone under the treeline an hour ago.</p><p> </p><p>The two men had been out in town for <em> hours </em> trying to find anyone else who might have had anything to do with not just Rowena, but also either Kylar or Shina’s parents’ teams.</p><p>No luck. Whenever they’d been in the area, they’d clearly been discreet.</p><p>Meanwhile Tacita had swept the forest around Rowena’s house for any further signs of raven feathers, or any other sorts of clues, but she’d mostly just done it while she’d been thinking over what she’d already found, and hadn’t expected any miracles.</p><p>So, unsurprisingly, they were simply waiting on Chrystal.</p><p> </p><p>“In the meantime…” Kylar picked up the piles of notes that Tacita had snatched and had been looking through. “What about you? What did you find?”</p><p>“...I don’t have it in me to think Rowena went bandit.” Shaking her head, Tacita sat on the edge of the table and crossed her arms in thought. “That house...guys it was almost like being back at my parents’ home. Photographs, books, a garden. This was a girl who didn’t even seem to want the life of a <em> Huntress </em>, let alone aspirations of banditry.”</p><p>“Her grandmother mentioned that she’d considered retiring from being a Huntress completely once she became a Maiden. It wasn’t what she wanted.” Shina frowned, looking back down at the floor in thought. “So what happened?”</p><p>“She vanished. Literally.” Tacita spread her hands helplessly and let them fall back onto her lap, biting her lip. “There were tracks, preserved by either her Semblance or by magic. She was sitting at her desk writing those notes, before she ran out into her backyard and just...disappeared.”</p><p>“Preserved?” Kylar looked up from the notes, his interest piqued, and Tacita nodded in confirmation.</p><p>“Baby, <em> everything </em>in that house was preserved. Food, dust, those papers, the garden, everything. Not a single moment of time had passed from the moment she emerged from her own front door and vanished into nothing.”</p><p>Pondering it, Kylar picked up one of the notes properly and slowly studied the paper it was written on. She was right, it hadn’t deteriorated a day despite being left out in the open for three years. Even the ink was still a rich fresh black, as if it had been written mere hours ago or even only a day or two.<br/>“That’s not like any Semblance I’ve ever heard of, especially lasting three full years after her disappearance without her being around to refresh it.” Kylar began to read the notes again properly, but only half of his mind was on what he was reading, the rest instead going off in numerous directions at once.</p><p>Tacita nodded in agreement, before grabbing the books she’d taken from Rowena’s study and opening them up, lifting the raven feather from within the pages.</p><p>“The only sign of whatever might have happened were these. Two feathers, from a raven.”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, Kylar put the papers down and gently took the feather from Tacita’s fingers, and brought it up to his eyes to study it closely, turning it back and forth.</p><p>“It’s pretty large. An adult. I didn’t think there were any ravens on Anima.”</p><p>“There aren’t. Not this far south anyway. And Rowena knew that as well.” Tacita passed over the textbook she’d taken, and Kylar took it in his free hand, glancing at the cover and humming before putting it down on the table, still studying the feather. “When she saw it on her windowsill, somehow it spooked her enough to run outside.”</p><p>“Strange…” Looking down at the feather in thought, Kylar glanced at the notes again and clicked his tongue. “And why the research on the Haven caverns?”</p><p>“No idea. But there are apparently miles of them. According to her notes she suspected that there are entire chunks of the mountain itself that are hollow.” Tacita lifted the other book she’d taken and showed it, placing it down next to the other one. “I’m not sure why that mattered to her.”</p><p>“An excursion, maybe?”</p><p>“Maybe, she definitely seemed more the scholarly type instead of a fighter.”</p><p> </p><p>Shina listened to the exchange quietly from where he was leaning and thinking, his eyes closed once again and his arms crossed over his chest. Every passing moment everything was growing more complicated, in ways that the four of them couldn’t have possibly seen coming. This was turning from a search mission into a convoluted conspiracy, and another conspiracy was the last thing Shina wanted to deal with.</p><p>They’d cocked the one up in Beacon already, they didn’t need another one to take too long to figure out.</p><p>Considering this time it could be <em> Haven </em>that suffered for it.</p><p>Maybe he was being a bit too pessimistic.</p><p>But it had been a long few months of travel, and their reward had been to find complicated questions.</p><p>He sighed, quietly enough that neither Kylar or Tacita noticed.</p><p> </p><p>Tacita cut off partially through something she was saying to look towards the door, and only a few moments later there was a quiet knock and then it opened, a tired looking Chrystal quickly stepping inside and closing it behind her before she properly acknowledged everyone in the room. Raising her eyebrows at the feather in Kylar’s hands, along with the compendium and the pile of notes on the table, she blinked.</p><p>“...productive afternoon?”</p><p>“Where the hell did <em> you </em>end up?” Shina looked at the splatters of mud and blood along Chrystal’s clothing, and the fact her hair was completely ruffled. He sighed. “Get anything interesting?”</p><p>“I may have gotten us exactly what we wanted, but for now though….” Chrystal looked down at herself, before glancing to Kylar and Tacita. “Can I wash off in your bathroom?”</p><p>Rolling his eyes, Kylar gestured to the door. “Go ahead. But fill us in while you do.”</p><p>“You go first.”</p><p> </p><p>As Chrystal unbuckled her harness as she walked through to the bathroom, she left the door open as she removed her jacket and began to fill the sink with water, splashing her face as the other three filled her in on everything they’d been up to and what they’d discovered. Frowning as she scrubbed the small splatters of blood from her arms, she looked over her shoulder and into the other room.</p><p>“I don’t remember either Qrow or Kylar’s parents mentioning anything about Maidens having kooky time stasis whatever powers.”</p><p>“How could it be a Semblance though? It’s been three years and even if she’s still alive she hasn’t been back there since.” Tacita frowned, hopping up onto the table properly to sit, and resting her hands in her lap.</p><p>Briefly pulling her tank top off over her head to get the last remnants of mud from her skin, Chrystal called out. “Doesn’t Weiss have that time dilation glyph she uses?”</p><p>Tilting his head in thought, Kylar lazily spun the feather between his fingers, before looking down at it and then at the papers. “Time alteration with dust <em> is </em> possible for the Schnee’s, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that this could be something similar. Three years is a long time, but if <em> nothing </em>disturbed a single thing in that house since the moment it began...something might have held intact. Hang on.”</p><p> </p><p>Closing his eyes for a few moments and taking in a deep breath, Kylar brought his aura to his eyes and expanded his vision, reaching out for lingering energies of dust in the room in the way his Semblance had evolved to allow him to do, and he opened his eyes again to see the world through it.<br/>Unsurprisingly, all of his friend’s belongings glowed brightly, and even the wood of the floor was humming in his sight. While he couldn’t transmute wood yet, since wood was a combination of two core elements of earth and water, the energy of it was still visible to him.</p><p>When he looked to the things they had all gathered, he blinked tightly for a moment before opening his eyes slightly wider. Rowena’s books and her papers had until very recently been touched by time dilation. But unlike how Weiss used it to speed up time, instead time around Rowena’s belongings had been slowed almost to a stop.</p><p>That fragile ward had been broken, almost certainly disturbed by Tacita’s own aura touching it just from her proximity.</p><p>But what had his eyes widened were both the compendium, and even the feather in his fingers, as both were glowing and vibrating with an energy that seemed unrelated to any dust he had encountered. While the book glowed brightly, whatever energy it was clearly infused into its very fibers, the energy of the feather was fainter, barely visible, but he could feel the vibration of it as he held it in his fingers.<br/>An energy unrelated to any dust, he’d seen traces of it in the ruined villages they had passed through. And he’d felt something similar in his clash with Cinder, when his powers were barely awakened.<br/>It was a hue and sensation he was quickly learning to simply associate….with <em>magic</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Dismissing the book for now, having a thousand questions relating to it that he had decided could wait until their other business in Ywitawa was settled, he instead focused on the feather, lifting it closer to his eyes to study it. In almost all ways it was simply a raven feather, a rather large one, but a lingering energy was faintly imbued in it, though the signature of it was fading now that it had been removed from the preservation ward around Rowena’s home.</p><p>Closing his eyes again for a moment as he felt his aura gradually draining, he returned his awareness and his sight to normal, and opened his eyes again, noticing that Chrystal had re emerged from the bathroom and was sitting on the edge of the bed, all three of the others having been watching him quietly.</p><p>They didn’t really understand his new sight, or his transmutations, no matter how he had tried to explain it. So they weren’t even sure what questions to ask.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, he flicked the feather around as he pondered it. “The papers were definitely preserved by a form of time dilation, but...it wasn’t a normal raven, that this feather came from. There’s magic in it. As much as I wish I didn’t have to say that word yet again.”</p><p>“...a magic <em>feather</em>?” Chrystal raised her eyebrows, her voice filled with a dry disbelief, and Kylar simply nodded.</p><p>“Whatever happened at her home three years ago, she was spooked enough by the raven that she threw up a ward even as she ran out of her own home.” Tacita frowned in thought, rubbing her fingers together slowly. “...it definitely wasn’t just a regular raven, then. Whatever the deal with it was, she must have recognised it.”</p><p>None of them had any idea how to respond, least of all Kylar who simply continued twirling the feather in his fingers in thought.</p><p> </p><p>As the silence stretched on, Kylar seeming content to sit in his own thoughts without explaining anything to the others, Shina ended up losing his patience and looking over to where a freshly scrubbed Chrystal was sitting on the bed. Flicking his eyes up and down, since she hadn’t put her jacket back on it allowed him to see the slight swelling in the muscles of her arms from recent exertion, and he raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Alright. Your turn. What was the fight?”</p><p>“The bandit tribe we’re on the tail of is in town. They’ve got quite the little operation going on, actually.” Chrystal couldn’t help but grin in admiration slightly. Her news caused all three of the others to look over at her in interest, so she continued. “Rowena hasn’t been seen by them for a while either, but she <em> was </em>with them.”</p><p>“How long is a while?” Shina frowned, shifting in where he was leaning against the wall so he was facing her, and she looked over at him with a serious expression.</p><p>“Didn’t really get a number, but the leader of their local operation here in town was actually….pretty reasonable. She’s agreed to meet us here tomorrow morning and take us to meet with their leader, who was <em>apparently </em>most likely the last person to see her before she disappeared.”</p><p>Humming in satisfaction, Shina raised his eyebrows, not letting her off the hook. “You were busy then. But...still why the blood?”</p><p>Shrugging, Chrystal didn’t feel any particular need to hide the truth. It wasn’t half as illegal as sneaking onto an Atlas airship. “Just a rumble in her fighting ring. She wagered the information on it, and I won. I always do.”</p><p>“...so the people we’re potentially going up against have seen you fight, now. They know what you’re capable of.” Closing his eyes in stress, Shina rubbed a hand over his face and sighed, before groaning when Chrystal replied.</p><p>“They recognised me before I even stepped in the ring. We fought on live television that was broadcast to the entire planet, guys. And god knows how many reruns have been aired since there isn’t exactly anything new to broadcast.” Chrystal sighed, spreading her hands helplessly as she looked around at each of them. “I’m willing to bet every bookie in the world knows our faces. Especially here in Mistral. I got recognised for shooting Lillian Vale. Remember, we fought one of Haven’s golden teams. Our match against LAVA was likely aired in fucking prime time, people are going to recognise us on occasion.”</p><p>“Normally I’d actually rather enjoy that.” Kylar nodded in understanding, before looking down and spinning the feather again in thought.</p><p> </p><p>Travelling through the wilds and through small villages that didn’t have much signal even with the towers up, they hadn’t had to worry about being recognised or even being bothered. The few people they’d encountered on the road had seen their weapons and kept their heads down, unless they were bandits who wanted to try their luck, and in the villages they were a welcome sight as they made sure to take down any Grimm they encountered on their way.</p><p>But being properly recognised?</p><p>It hadn’t even seemed like a possibility until it had apparently become clear that Adam Taurus and the White Fang knew they were in Mistral, and they were recognisable enough that half a dozen White Fang camps and patrols had tried their chance for the reward they presumed they’d get for delivering SKTC to their leaders dead or alive.</p><p>Which was a massive problem on its own, but not one they could do anything about apart from hope that eventually the White Fang would get the message that they didn’t stand much of a chance, but even then that just meant there was a possibility that would just provoke the organisation to actively send more dangerous bounty hunters after them. And they all knew that Shina had privately considered the eventuality of Adam coming out on the hunt for them himself.</p><p>With eyes for Shina personally. The camps they’d encountered had made it clear that it was Shina’s name that was making the rounds.</p><p>The White Fang were not an organisation who could easily recover from blows to their reputation and their momentum. The main currency that revolutionaries traded in was fear, and the fall of Beacon had made them <em> very </em>rich in that regard. Particularly Adam for his involvement.</p><p>But Shina, alongside Pyrrha Nikos, had been one of the school’s champions. And he’d gone up against the White Fang general personally, and walked away.</p><p>Adam wouldn’t be able to tolerate that. Not with the risk that a teenager surviving a clash with him posed to his reputation for being one of the most dangerous terrorists on Remnant.</p><p> </p><p>They’d all noticed that Shina had stepped up his training in intensity.</p><p> </p><p>Being recognised by the White Fang posed constant danger to their lives, but being recognised by the bandits they had expected to have to track and likely deal with?</p><p>Kylar wasn’t sure whether it was a blessing in disguise, or an absolute nightmare.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Shina finished the same train of thought only a few moments later, and his arms tightened across his chest as he took in a deep stressed breath and let it out slowly, closing his eyes for a moment and then opening them, still looking at Chrystal.</p><p>“We do need to start keeping that in mind, but that’s for later. Who are we meeting and where are we going?”</p><p>“The woman’s name is Lexica, she’s actually pretty decent, I like her. Not sure <em> where </em>she’s taking us, but we’re meeting with her leader just after breakfast. A woman named Raven.”</p><p> </p><p>As Chrystal said the name, Tacita’s eyes flickered slightly wider for a moment, before he cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.</p><p>“Then we’re in for a very dangerous morning.”</p><p>Once the three others were looking over at her, she simply took the raven feather from Kylar and held it up, a grim smile on her face as all four of them looked at it in thought.</p><p>“Because not only was this Raven woman supposedly the last person to see Rowena, but there’s every chance she’s the one who caused her to vanish from her home in the first place.”</p><p> </p><p>“So, just so I know what the plan is.” Shina kicked off from the wall and began to pace back and forth across the room, his hands templed in front of his face. “The bandit tribe who Rowena is now confirmed to have been a part of, knows of our existence and our presence. And now we are heading into a meeting with the woman who; leads these bandits, convinced a <b>pacifistic </b> young Maiden to go rogue, and then <em> misplaced </em> that Maiden. And we’re having <em> breakfast </em> with this woman, where we intend on trying to figure out how <em> any </em>of that came to be. That’s the plan?”</p><p>“...that about sums it up.” Chrystal grinned with a nod, flopping back on the bed with her hands folded underneath her head. “Too easy.”</p><p>Nodding slowly as he thought over it, Kylar looked over to Tacita with a resigned look, and she gave him one in return. He sighed. “We are definitely going to die.”</p><p>“Absolutely.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Clipped Wings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Telise finally has her chance to speak with Angel in private and approach things her own unique way, and without a corner of her mind to retreat into Angel is unable to keep all of her soft spots a secret forever.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: Psychological torture, gaslighting, and forced drug use.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Even though the heavy blast door had been unlocked and opened, the small sleeping Angel didn’t react or stir in any way, and all was silent apart from the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights in the hallway. The older Angel looked down at her younger counterpart silently, without daring to step closer to the doorway than she currently was. This room was the last place she ever wanted to be again.</p><p>Telise had no such reservations, and stepped into the room calmly and politely, her hands folded in front of herself as she looked around at the homely furnishings.</p><p>“Interesting. No matter how much they tried, they couldn’t disguise what this room was, could they?”</p><p> </p><p>She spoke softly, as if cautious about awakening the sleeping girl near her even though they weren’t actually there to be able to disturb her. But this was the first time Telise had been given the opportunity to use her gifts on a completely aware subject, and the sheer detail of the memory was immersive enough it was easy to forget it wasn’t real.</p><p>Which didn’t escape her notice, and she looked over her shoulder at where Angel was still frozen outside.</p><p> </p><p>“How old were you here?”</p><p>Unspeaking at first, Angel’s eyes were still completely locked onto her younger self, and she took in a deep breath to let out slowly. “Hard to say. I lived in this room a while.”</p><p>“How long is a while?”</p><p>“From thirteen up until I was enrolled into Haven and moved into the dorms.”</p><p>“Four years…” Telise hummed in interest, before crouching down and looking at the younger Angel’s face, studying her peaceful features. She looked to be around fifteen in this particular memory. “Tragic.”</p><p>“Necessary.” Angel’s voice was strained, and the word came out with force, but saying it had her finally looking away from her younger self and instead back down the hallway.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, Telise straightened back up and turned to face the older Angel, taking a few steps towards the girl to close the distance. The sheer force of her proximity alone had Angel looking back to her as if hypnotised, and Telise thinned her lips when she had her attention.</p><p>“Why necessary?”</p><p>“I was...too dangerous, to be anywhere else.” Flinching, Angel crossed her arms over her chest insecurely, and while she had the urge to look down at the ground she was unable to break eye contact.</p><p>She wasn’t sure why she was saying as much as she was, but her mouth kept opening before she had the chance to stop it. They might be in her memories, but she wasn’t the one in control here, and her subconscious knew it.</p><p>Telise shook her head. “Power is only dangerous when people refuse to refine it properly.”</p><p>“You have no idea what my power is. What it can do.”</p><p>“If they locked you away because of it, then they didn’t truly know either. You’ll see.” Telise simply said, with such a calm confidence that Angel blinked and pulled back a bit, before finally being able to look away. </p><p> </p><p>Seeming to know what was about to happen, which wasn’t unexpected considering it was her own memory, Angel tensed up for a few moments before the younger Angel twitched in her sleep. Another twitch was followed by a glow of light which vanished so quickly it would have been easy to believe it hadn’t actually happened at all. The sleeping girl whimpered in her sleep and tossed and turned for a moment.</p><p>Tossing again after a few moments, her body began to glow as if lit from within, a shimmering white rippling just on the surface of her skin. Every time it would begin to fade, only a few moments later she would thrash in her sleep, or whine, and it would return brighter than before.</p><p> </p><p>“A nightmare?” Telise turned to Angel and raised her eyebrows in question, and the girl hesitated before nodding.</p><p>“...sort of.”</p><p>“Sort of?”</p><p>“More like a build-up.” Looking down at the ground again, Angel stepped away from the room, her hand returning to the door. “We’re going to want to close this.”</p><p>“It’s not really open, Angel. We’re not really here.”</p><p> </p><p>Before Angel could answer, another flash from the sleeping girl almost blinded the both of them, and they both looked up when the lights on the roof began to flicker and fizzle madly, the sheer energy that was building in the air disrupting the electricity. The younger Angel thrashed wildly in her sleep, and she was glowing bright enough that her older counterpart was forced to turn away, meanwhile Telise continued to watch in curiosity.<br/>A crackling sound had Telise look over into the corner of the room, where the computer that was set up was sparking wildly, the screen flickering on and off. The lightbulbs of the hallway lights began to blow one by one, the wiring in them sparking and shattering, and the room terminal did the same, before all of a sudden the sleeping Angel woke with a final thrash and loud gasp.</p><p>And the room exploded with the light of a sun.</p><p> </p><p>There was no initial noise, not really, as the build-up of energy finally released in a wave radiating out of the girl like a bomb. The practically indestructible walls cracked and bent as everything even slightly weaker vaporised entirely, the bookcases and the terminal reduced to barely particles of dust. The wrenching sound of metal was heard as the blast door, which was closed in the memory, was blown completely out of the wall and sent crashing across the hallway into the opposite wall with enough force the wall cracked dangerously on impact.</p><p>As the burst of energy began to fade, the now-awake Angel gradually became visible as the light faded, her eyes wide open and every part of her shining a bright white. What interested Telise the most was that most of the girl’s sleepwear had remained intact, with only the back of her shirt truly incinerated, while the short sleeves were singed black. Even her normally dark hair was a vibrant glowing white.</p><p>Gasping and panting, the girl gradually dimmed, swaying where she was sitting up, and even before she had lost her inner light her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped.</p><p>Alarms were sounding in the distance down the hallway, and Telise turned around to see the older Angel watching a certain direction, knowing what was coming next as a set of doors was heard being thrown open, followed by the sound of running footsteps.</p><p>A trio of doctors rounded the corner at a sprint, only one of them fully dressed, having been on the night shift, while the other two looked as if their outer clothes had been thrown on in a hurry. As they took in the carnage, they slowed to a stop for barely a moment, their eyes widening, before they immediately ran to Angel’s room.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh gods, not again.” The one woman of the trio sighed worriedly as she entered the room, ignoring the carnage at the moment to instead crouch by the unconscious Angel and begin to check her over, seeming to be unsurprised at the lack of injury. “Oh honey, what happened this time…”</p><p>One of the men watched carefully, looking around at the damage in the room, before thinning his lips. “It’s been two weeks since the last overcharge, we expected this.”</p><p>“Even stronger than the last one.” The other man added, standing outside of the room to stay out of the way, unknowingly within arms reach of where Telise and the older Angel were watching, Telise watched in curiosity while Angel instead had a completely sealed expression on her face.</p><p>“They’re always stronger.” The woman sighed, before gently scooping Angel up into her arms and standing. “Come on, let’s get her to secondary containment and lock her down.”</p><p> </p><p>At that comment, Telise raised an eyebrow and looked over to the other Angel with an unspoken question, and the other girl just silently began to follow where her younger self was being carried. Only one of the other doctors followed, the other remaining behind to call in assistance in dealing with the damage caused to the room, and the damage done to the local power grid.<br/>They followed as the younger Angel was carried to the emergency stairwell and then down two more levels, deep underground. The male doctor with a free hand scanned his pass to open a security door, and the group began to head down a brightly lit hallway. Two more security doors later and they arrived at another heavily reinforced blast door, which was heavy enough that mechanised pistons were used to open it, revealing a reasonably large space.</p><p>In the exact center of the room was a medical bed, except instead of basic metal the railings were instead formed of hardlight-dust infused steel, and it was surrounded by numerous unique looking pressurised IV drops and monitoring equipment. Telise also noticed that there were two holes in the mattress, properly cut and placed with the mattress clearly custom-made, with the holes placed so that there would be access to the shoulder-blades of whoever was laying on it.</p><p>Telise looked over her shoulder, and watched as the older Angel not only refused to enter this room as well, but had stopped several paces away from the door entirely, facing away from it and looking straight down at the ground, her arms tightly crossed over her chest and her eyes squeezed shut. She was shivering violently, and Telise raised an eyebrow curiously before looking back to the activity in the room.</p><p> </p><p>The woman placed the unconscious Angel on the bed, and the two doctors began.</p><p> </p><p>Heavy infused-metal restraints attached to the bed were clamped tightly around Angel’s limbs, before a different IV drop was inserted into each one. Both her arms, both her legs, and another two were reached underneath the mattress to pump directly into her shoulder blades.</p><p>As the drugs, whatever they were, began to pump into the unconscious Angel’s system, she went even more still than she had been already, and her skin paled.</p><p>The female doctor looked away for the next part as the other doctor walked over to a terminal and tapped a few keys, entering his credentials, before activating another problem. The hum of high-voltage electricity sounded in the room as wires attached to the clamps around Angel’s limbs came to life, and even despite the drugs the girl spasmed for a moment as a constant flow of electricity began to flow into her system.</p><p> </p><p>“Vitals are holding. Should lock her down.” The doctor at the terminal checked the readings, and he nodded to the woman, who looked down at Angel with a sad expression.</p><p>“Alright...we should get back for now. No way of knowing what else in the hospital she shorted out.”</p><p>“Sure.” The man nodded, taking a step towards the door, before hesitating and looking back over at her. “I’ll...see you up there, Georgia.”</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>As the man left, vanishing down the hallway, the woman looked back down at the unconscious and restrained Angel and sighed sadly, her face softening as she almost went to run her fingers through the girl’s hair before stopping herself, reminding herself that electricity was currently coursing through the girl’s body.</p><p>“I’m sorry babygirl...we’ll fix it up as fast as we can again, okay? Be strong for me. I love you.”</p><p> </p><p>The woman stepped away from the girl, still keeping her eyes on her, before forcing herself to turn away and make her way back down the corridor, but not before tapping her pass for the impressively powerful blast doors to seal closed with a heavy sound, but the older Angel quickly and finally stepped inside, glancing up at the woman as she passed her, with eyes that were both sad but also slightly hostile.</p><p>Slowly, she joined Telise over where Telise was looking down at her restrained younger self, while also examining the contents of the IV bags.</p><p>“They’re poisoning you.” Telise said matter-of-factly as she tilted her head at the bags, running a finger just over the tubing until it reached skin. “And electrocuting you.”</p><p>“Yes. To keep my aura low after a discharge.”</p><p>Humming in almost amusement in response, Telise looked over at the older version, who was looking down at her younger self with a look that could only be described as miserable <em> outrage </em> as her fists clenched tightly at her sides.</p><p>“They speak about it as if you were a bomb.”</p><p>“I <em> am </em>a bomb.” Angel spat out, but her eyes were hurt, and she looked as if she wanted to reach out and lay a hand on her younger self. </p><p>Telise spoke softly. “You don’t believe that.” </p><p>Angel didn’t respond for a few moments, her face tight, before she sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly and shakily. She didn’t look up at Telise as she spoke. “I don’t want to remember this.”</p><p>“That’s what I’m curious about. You’re unconscious, there’s no way we should be able to remember it at all.” Telise suspected the truth, but she wanted to hear Angel say it. To hear Angel confess it. And she got what she wanted.</p><p>“I’m not unconscious. Not fully. I never was. I healed too fast.”</p><p>“...you can feel it.” Telise looked down at where the younger Angel was surely in agony from the drugs <em> and </em>the electrocution.</p><p>Not even bothering to reply, Angel looked down at her younger version’s face, and a hurt and angry tear escaped her eye to run down her cheek. She didn’t brush it off, instead electing to ignore its existence even as it dropped down onto the sheets.</p><p>Telise spoke softly, a miniscule smile appearing in the corner of her mouth even as the rest of her face had an expression of fascinated curiosity. “That’s why Kakra couldn’t break you.”</p><p> </p><p>Still no response, so Telise continued.</p><p> </p><p>“That woman. Was that your mother?”</p><p>Again, no verbal response, but Telise caught the small flash of pain in Angel’s eyes as she still looked down at her younger self, finally giving into the temptation to run a finger through the girl’s hair.</p><p>“Did she know you could feel being strapped here?”</p><p>“Let me out.”</p><p>“Was this temporary solution her idea? Or just one she agreed to?”</p><p>“<b>Let me out.”</b></p><p>“How often did they do this to you? Once a month? Once a week? When you were younger and had less control, I imagine it was around once a week.”</p><p>
  <b> <em>“LET ME OUT!!!”</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>With a wild shout, the older Angel flashed with her own light, her eyes going a pure white for a moment as her impossible aura rippled. Despite it not being real, the electronics in the room flickered, and she gripped the railing of the bed with enough force the metal groaned.</p><p> </p><p>There it was.</p><p> </p><p>No visible reaction crossed Telise’s features even as she felt vicious satisfaction, her hands still politely and relaxedly folded in front of herself. She regarded Angel curiously for a few moments as the girl glowed in her rage, a few more hurt tears escaping her eyes, and when she finally noticed them she squeezed her eyes shut and looked away, taking a hand from the railing of the bed to wipe them off.</p><p>“Four years, and this was the best they could do. The best they dared enough to do, apart from fear what you are.”</p><p>“<b> <em>No</em> </b>, that’s not true.” Angel raised her arms, showing her limiters that were still attached to herself even inside of the mindscape, simply being a part of how she mentally visualised her appearance now. “I have these.”</p><p>“After four years of this. Do you really think they couldn’t have invented such a thing earlier if they had committed to <em> helping </em> you instead of just <em> stopping </em>you?”</p><p> </p><p>Angel went silent, and Telise watched patiently as a silent war began behind the miserable rage in Angel’s eyes, the girl swallowing a lump in her throat and letting out a shaky breath. After the silence stretched on for a minute, Telise spoke again, a theory in her mind.</p><p>“They didn’t even invent them, did they.”</p><p>After a pause, Angel shook her head.</p><p>Telise’s voice softened. “Atlas did.”</p><p>Angel nodded, and looked away, her eyes unreadable as the rage slowly dwindled.</p><p>“Mistral feared you enough to settle for torturing you. It took Atlas’s involvement to get a solution.”</p><p>Angel’s voice was strained, and forced. “It wasn’t torture, it was containment.”</p><p>“You can’t lie to me, or yourself, right now.”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes, Angel looked down, biting her bottom lip as her skin glowed again slightly underneath the surface, but between her limiters and her own focus Angel kept it contained as she went through her thoughts.</p><p>“It was the best they could think of, for me.”</p><p>“And what does that say about them? You were just a girl.”</p><p>“I was a threat.” Angel’s voice came out as a whisper, and another tear escaped her eye and dropped onto the sheets, the liquid of it shimmering from her aura.</p><p>“Not yet you weren’t. Not until you enrolled to become one.” Telise tilted her head in curiosity as Angel flinched and her grip on the bed tightened again.</p><p> </p><p>Standing there in silence, the minutes stretched on as Telise continued to stare at Angel as the girl kept her eyes closed in thought, her glow eventually fading as her rage diminished and was replaced instead with sadness.</p><p>Eventually, Angel whispered. “Can we go now?”</p><p>“I’ve found out what I wanted to, yes. But I’m curious now.” Telise tapped her hands together, and tilted her head yet again, almost like a serpent staring down prey. “Why <em> did </em>you enroll into the Academy, if you wanted to become a doctor?”</p><p> </p><p>With Angel as torn open as she was, there was no stopping or disguising the flinch, and the flash of her aura from the pain and anger and sadness at whatever memory went through her.</p><p>But she didn’t answer. She was done.</p><p>Still satisfied regardless, Telise nodded. “Some other time. But we’re done for tonight. Get some sleep, and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”</p><p> </p><p>And without another word, the world around Angel blurred and distorted, before fading into darkness. And she was taken into a deep slumber, filled to the brim with nightmares of being strapped to the bed in a silent lab, with no escape from the solution her mother had thought of for her.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>With Cinder still in recovery and spending plenty of her time training her new powers with Salem, her part in the plans to come currently ground to a halt until she was better, it left both Emerald and Mercury with very little to occupy their time with. While Mercury spent plenty of his time off on his own, usually either training or even risking exploring the local wasteland and passing the time by killing Grimm to stay in form, Emerald instead found herself aimless.</p><p>It didn’t suit her. Inaction had never been her strength, ever since she was a kid on the streets constantly having to stay on the lookout and on the move, in a world surrounded by threats and plagued by the pangs of where to get her next meal, or where to sleep that night to be out of the weather but also out of sight. So having nothing to do with her time except wander through the massive castle made her anxious and uncomfortable.</p><p>She trained just as much as Mercury did, but the time outside of training was spent waiting for Cinder to need something from her, no matter what it was. Such requests were rare, often only needing her assistance to speak for her during meetings of the inner circle, so Emerald’s hours were spent waiting quietly a few paces away from Cinder at all times, or wandering the castle when she could tell she wasn’t wanted or needed.</p><p> </p><p>The castle was certainly full of its curiosities and its horrors. Salem had centuries of relics and experiments lingering around in the many chambers and rooms, plenty of which were dusty from neglect, and Emerald had spent time poking through them. While there weren’t any relics of power or of a significance enough that Emerald recognised them, she could tell the age of plenty of them, dating back centuries and centuries.</p><p>There were also plenty of books, many of which so ancient they were unreadable from deterioration, but some were still intact, and she’d been slowly working through them.</p><p> </p><p>But more and more she found herself keeping an eye on Delilah and her children.</p><p> </p><p>When she had first met the other girl she’d known immediately that she was powerful, but even from the beginning she’d also been unnerving. Emerald could never have predicted what was to come, and every passing week Delilah had revealed more and more of her horrific nature.</p><p>On the edge of Emerald’s awareness, she could feel Delilah’s mind with her Semblance, and the sheer energy and vibrancy it gave off had her on edge from the first day, and since then it had only grown worse.</p><p>And Delilah’s children were even worse, with almost no humanity inside of their minds at all. Being so close to Kakra was like being close to an embodiment of gore and hunger. A creature of base instincts and the intelligence to pursue them, Kakra’s mind screamed out that predatory insanity, and it was almost enough to buckle Emerald’s knees if she was ever too close.</p><p>And Telise was a whole different kind of predator. Not as animalistic as Kakra, her mind was...sharp. Instead of riddled with barbed teeth like Kakra’s, her’s was simply a black inky void.</p><p>Thankfully Kakra spent very little time at the castle itself. She was always either hunting Huntsmen in Mistral, or slaughtering Grimm out in the wastelands, devouring them to grow stronger and to attempt to sate her infinite hunger. Meanwhile Emerald had barely been around Telise at all, only having ever laid eyes on the creature twice.</p><p>Yet Delilah was a constant presence, the woman barely sleeping, staying up in her laboratories conducting her experiments. Corpses were brought in by Kakra and then either dismembered or ‘evolved’, but the next stage of Delilah’s experiments was mostly producing failures. Of the three dozen attempts to birth another Screamer, only Telise had been successful.</p><p>So she’d turned her attention elsewhere;</p><p>The birthing pod. </p><p> </p><p>A horrific bulbous black tumor easily large enough to seal a person inside of its flesh, at first looking it seemed to have grown out of the ground itself and rooted, looking for all intents and purposes like a mucus-covered cancer that could devour beings whole if it had the inclination. Emerald had watched while invisible with horrified eyes as Delilah had grown the most recent attempt out of herself, the mass emerging from her arms and torso as if it was <em> crawling </em>out of her with tendrils and gestating pustules, rooting to the ground and steadily growing the more flesh it was fed, sucking in both human and Grimm corpses into itself to be digested and add to its mass.</p><p>It was the worst thing Emerald had ever seen. She hadn’t slept well for a week after first seeing it, and ever since then she’d found herself drawn back to look at it over and over again, even when Delilah was absent from the room. The woman kept heavily detailed notes on her new pet, filling journals at a rapid speed, as her jars of body parts and brain segments filled whole rows of her shelves.</p><p>While Delilah could come across as pleasant enough, and was in fact always polite in conversation if it ever occurred, she barely spoke a word to anybody unless prompted or it was necessary, unless it was her children. She always had all the time in the world for her children, whether it be soft words and affection for Kakra when Kakra delivered bodies, or even gentle warmth for her failed experiments in the moments before she devoured them back into her own flesh.</p><p>But she was cordial and polite to Cinder, and always had polite words for Emerald and Mercury, despite the way she looked at them both. While she looked at Mercury with what could only be described as disappointment, the way she looked at <em> Emerald </em>always made her shiver uncontrollably.</p><p>And then Angel had been brought back by Kakra, and they’d been told of team LAVA’s demise.</p><p> </p><p>Team LAVA were obstacles in the way of Cinder’s and Salem’s goals, so Emerald knew they had to be removed, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d <em> known </em>the girls. During her brief period of time impersonating as a fellow competitor of Haven, she’d been drawn into interactions and conversations with the girls quite a few times, especially by the forever sociable Alice.</p><p>While normally that would have driven her crazy, something about the girls of LAVA had...stuck out to her.</p><p>They were enthusiastic, sure. But they hadn’t been happy-go-lucky like most students had been.</p><p>Despite her best efforts to maintain detachment, Emerald had found herself liking Alice and Angel. Respecting them.</p><p>Now…</p><p> </p><p>Hearing Kakra report her fight with them to Delilah, and then Delilah informing Salem, it was one of the only times Emerald had ever excused herself from being at Cinder’s side and gone off on her own to be in her own thoughts. Loss wasn’t new to her, she’d grown up on the streets, but this felt different.</p><p>Plenty of people she’d known in passing from the tournament had died at Beacon, but that had been different. That was a battle in a war, where everybody had an even chance.</p><p>LAVA had been hunted like prey.</p><p>It felt different.</p><p> </p><p>That had been a couple of days ago, and Angel had been kept locked away in one of Delilah’s labs, kept unconscious by Kakra until they had a use for her. Emerald had caught sight of the girl only once, and she’d looked peaceful even though she’d been strapped to a surgical table.<br/>And then, only that morning, Kakra had tortured her. For hours.</p><p>As soundproof as the halls of the castle could be, the effects it had been having on Angel’s mind had radiated out into Emerald’s own, her Semblance forcing her to feel the echoes on the periphery.</p><p>It had been agony. It had been heartbreaking.</p><p> </p><p>But Delilah had gotten her child back under control, and Angel had some hours of peace until Kakra returned with Telise. Even though not a single sound emerged from the room since Telise had entered, Emerald had still been able to feel the pulsing and ebbing distress inside of Angel’s mind from whatever was happening.<br/>It was why she currently found herself outside of the lab where Angel was being held, somehow drawn there without her realising, her arms crossed over herself as she stared at the closed door and felt what was going on behind it. The echoes from Angel’s mind had finally stopped, and Emerald wasn’t sure whether or not she should be concerned or relieved, but a few moments later the door slid open and Telise emerged.</p><p>Meeting eyes with Delilah or one of her children was always overwhelming for Emerald, as the sheer force of their psychic presence battered her own psyche, and Telise was no different as even with a passing glance she almost had Emerald drop to her knees from the screaming inside of her own head.</p><p>Immediately looking down, Emerald didn’t say a word as Telise calmly and casually stepped past her, but the monster then stopped when they were shoulder to shoulder and turned her head to look at her, looking slightly down due to the height difference.</p><p> </p><p>“Is an investment in the girl’s welfare in your best interest?”</p><p> </p><p>Telise’s voice was smooth, somehow coming across as sensual even as cold and casual as it was, and Emerald found herself strangely compelled to reply even as she kept looking down at the ground, her arms tightening across her chest.</p><p>“It’s not that I <em> care </em>, I’m just curious.”</p><p>“You should be happy for her. She has enough potential to be given a great opportunity, now that she’s here.”</p><p>“What, to become one of <em> you? </em>” Emerald’s voice was strained even in its defiance, and she managed to look up into Telise’s cold stare. </p><p>The woman simply nodded.</p><p>“Your disdain and disgust are understandable, you know.”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking in surprise, disarmed, Emerald pulled back and raised her eyebrows at the unexpectedly gentle expression on the woman’s face. Opening and closing her mouth for a moment, Emerald’s voice came out hesitant.</p><p>“...that’s not what your....<em> family </em>...think.”</p><p>“I know. My mother is a <em> brilliant </em> woman, but a key difficulty of having an important purpose is that not everyone will see it the way you do.” Telise folded her hands behind her back, and her eyes were considerate and thoughtful as she picked her words. “Logically she understands your apprehension, but the strength of her reasoning tells her that you should be able to comprehend what she’s trying to do. Which you <em> can </em>, but you just aren’t. It’s not your fault. Like all mortals, you’re compelled to reject what goes against the natural order. It’s a gut instinct.”</p><p>“...you don’t think it’s natural either? But you’re <em> one </em>of them.”</p><p>“Of course it isn’t the natural order, the natural order is what my mother is attempting to correct. It’s simply another established system in a world full of broken systems.” Telise shrugged, tapping her fingers on the back of her other hand behind her back. “By removing me from the natural order, my mother did me a great blessing.”</p><p>Emerald felt herself relaxing slightly at the conversational and contemplative tone in Telise’s voice, and she straightened up a bit. She frowned as she attempted to understand. “Just...another ‘broken system’? You mean like the Huntsmen Academies too, or something?”</p><p>“Along with most other things, yes. Changing or removing systems is never beautiful. Ever. You look at my mother the way most people would look at you, for what you did to Beacon and Vale.”</p><p>“That’s not...I didn’t...that wasn’t…”</p><p> </p><p>Raising an eyebrow at Emerald’s reflexive objections and denial, Telise waited silently as Emerald fell quiet and looked away, her arms dropping by her sides. The destruction of Beacon and Vale, the tens of thousands of casualties, had been weighing on Emerald immensely.</p><p>It was one of the reasons she craved distraction. To escape the memories of what had happened to the city that night, and nights after.</p><p>Vale had burned for over a week.</p><p> </p><p>As Emerald stayed quiet in thought, Telise took the opportunity to poke another needle into the soft spot that she’d peeled open in Emerald’s doubts.</p><p>“You’re going to be part of the destruction of the great cities on the planet, one by one. But if people remain the same, they’ll simply rebuild, and the only changes that will be made will be made out of hatred and anger, and things will get worse. You cannot properly change one system unless you also change another coinciding one. My mother can change humanity into the people they’ll need to be if they’re going to rebuild the world better than it was after Salem and Cinder finish burning most of it down.”</p><p>“But...but <em> how </em> are you <em> better </em> than people???” Emerald’s face scrunched up as a pulse of fear and anxiety went through her, but when Telise merely tilted her head in curiosity she continued, devolving into an anxious stammer as she took a step back. “I’ve seen what you all do! You kill, you <em> eat...human flesh </em> , you torture and <em> enjoy </em>it. You’re literally part Grimm!”</p><p>“This is all true, but there are enough differences for things to be better.” A shimmer went through Telise’s eyes for a moment, and Emerald felt as the woman’s mind seemed to shift, and Telise frowned apologetically. “I’m afraid I must be going. But I mean it. There are enough differences between my people, and humanity, for things to be better.”</p><p>Turning to start walking away, Telise gently placed her cold hand on Emerald’s shoulder, and gave her a serious look. “My mother, my siblings, and I, won’t create a world where little girls starve in the streets, desperate and alone. But how many fresh orphans did you create at the fall of Beacon, Emerald? Will humanity as they currently are find room for them?”</p><p> </p><p>Not giving Emerald time to respond, Telise took her hand from Emerald’s shoulder and folded both of them behind her back as she walked away, taking the opportunity of her face being hidden to let out a cold satisfied smile at the silence she left in her wake as Emerald sank into deep morbid thought, still staring at the laboratory door.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, Angel woke to the sound of the laboratory doors opening, and as her mind remembered where she was she instinctively pulled against the restraints, her mind refreshed from the surprisingly deep sleep through the night. Looking towards the door to see who entered, she frowned into a glare when Telise closed the door behind herself, a tray easily balanced on one hand as she locked the door with the other.</p><p>“Ah yes, I did expect you’d wake so soon.” Telise nodded in satisfaction as she made her way over to the table with the tray, and placed it down on a nearby counter. “If my estimations are correct, it’s been nearly four days since your last meal.”</p><p>Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, Angel was thankful for the last dregs of sleep leaving her mind and body, clearing her up, and she nodded slowly without speaking. Telise hummed in confirmation, before stepping over to the table next to where Angel’s head and shoulders were bound and restrained.<br/>“I have no qualms about feeding you myself if need be, but I can undo your top half so you can sit up and do it yourself, if you’d prefer.”</p><p>Staring at Telise silently in complete surprise, Angel’s mouth fell open as her mind tried to catch up. Her captor looked completely serious, without a shred of deception in her eyes, though Angel did admit that thus far Telise had proven to be completely unreadable.</p><p>Slowly, she nodded.</p><p>“I’d...like to feed myself.”</p><p>“Of course. There is a condition, however.”</p><p>“Wonderful…” Angel grumbled, but she wasn’t surprised, so she raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”</p><p>“I’m going to inject you with my venom again first. To stop you doing anything that could get you hurt.”</p><p>“Oh <em> hell </em>no!” Angel spat out, shaking her head aggressively as her eyes hardened. “Not a chance!”</p><p>“Suit yourself.” Unbothered, Telise moved a chair so it was next to the surgical table and sat, placing the tray on her lap.</p><p> </p><p>From the distance and angle, Angel could make out a bowl of some sort of soup, and some slices of bread. Frowning as she studied it, Angel didn’t notice as Telise watched her quietly and patiently, but the silence was broken when Angel’s stomach rumbled from the scent of the fresh food.</p><p>After another few moments of internal debate, Angel sighed.</p><p>“What does your venom <em> do? </em>”</p><p>Without any inflection or hesitation about answering, Telise gave a small and polite smile. “I have two. One is for combat, and it’s a pain-causing neurotoxin enhanced by my aura. But I dislike using that one. My main one is the one I put you under yesterday. It induces a fugue state that makes my prey incredibly suggestible.”</p><p>Angel stared daggers into Telise’s eyes defiantly for a few moments as she argued with herself internally, her pride not wanting to be fed like she was helpless arguing against her desire to <em> not be poisoned. </em>But she doubted Telise would go through all this trouble just to kill her, especially since she’d be able to bite Angel by force if she wished to like she had done yesterday.</p><p>Huffing, Angel surrendered and nodded, looking up at the roof. “Alright. Go ahead….”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in agreement, Telise placed the tray aside again and stood, before placing her fingers on Angel’s jaw and guiding her head to look away, exposing her neck. As Telise casually bent down, Angel squeezed her eyes shut and whined in discomfort as she felt the woman’s fangs pierce into her neck again, and the telltale warmth of venom entering her bloodstream.</p><p>And then, clouds. She sighed as all tension left her muscles and the room began to float, blinking in an attempt to refocus her vision, she hummed in curiosity when it didn’t work, the world instead growing slightly foggier.</p><p>It was actually really pleasant, even though she knew what was happening. The air in the room felt soft and gentle on her skin, and she didn’t even think of thrashing or making any movement as Telise removed the chains on her arms and neck, guiding her to sit up.</p><p> </p><p>Smiling distantly as the tray of food was placed on her lap, Angel let out a loud sigh of relief and satisfaction at the first mouthful, nodding in thanks as she began to mindlessly eat. While she’d always liked soup, it tasted even more amazing than it normally should, and even the bread seemed impossibly fluffy in her fingers despite consciously knowing that it probably wasn’t.</p><p>Her skin was tingling nicely as the venom caressed her, and she barely even noticed when she eventually finished eating and the tray was taken from her lap, Telise then handing her a glass of cool fresh water to drink.</p><p>Neither of them spoke a word the entire time, and eventually Angel laid back down and allowed herself to be reshackled and restrained again, the venom gradually fading from her system as her powerful aura burnt it off at a comparatively rapid pace, and the world came back into focus.</p><p>Sucking in deep breaths as she felt herself sobering up, Angel clenched her fists tightly at the unpleasant nausea that went through herself, groaning in discomfort before letting out one final deep breath and calming.</p><p>While her body still felt tingly and fuzzy, her mind was noticeable returning to sharpness, and she looked over to where Telise was sitting and waiting patiently, not even twitching or blinking with her hands folded politely on her lap.</p><p>When the ability to form words and construct sentences returned to her, Angel gave a nod and a groan, but she was thankful all the same.</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>Telise gave a small smile. “Not so unpleasant, right?”</p><p>“I meant for the food, but also...sure, I guess.” Looking back up at the roof, Angel scowled. In truth, it actually had been pretty pleasant. She hadn’t been that relaxed in weeks.</p><p>They were both silent again for a while before Angel spoke up, looking over at Telise again and narrowing her eyes. “So what am I in for today?”</p><p>“Just me. My mother has agreed that you and I should have privacy. You won’t be seeing either her or Kakra from here on out.”</p><p>“...and what do <em> you </em>want?”</p><p>“Just for us to keep talking. I found our experience yesterday to be very intriguing.” Telise gave a small smile, and Angel glared and looked away when she was reminded.</p><p> </p><p>Some memories were better off buried. Even despite how deeply she’d been asleep, she’d had nightmares all night. Not only that, but she couldn’t deny that it had felt incredibly….personal, for someone else to see that.</p><p>It was a strange sense of violation and intrusion, for one of the parts of her life she was the most ashamed of to be observed and dissected.</p><p>“There’s nothing else to show.”</p><p>“I don’t believe that’s true.” Telise shook her head gently, softly tapping her fingers together in thought. “I was thinking over it during the night, and there are a few other things I’m curious about.”</p><p>Angel shot her a glare. “I don’t care. Stay out of my head.”</p><p>Seeming to think over it for a moment, Telise nodded. “As you wish.”</p><p> </p><p>Standing without another word, Telise stepped back over to the table and placed a hand on Angel’s jaw yet again, forcefully turning her head to expose her neck, and then sinking her fangs deeply into her, maintaining her bite for quite a few moments longer than earlier as she pumped a large dose of her venom into Angel’s system, the girl’s resistance melting away as the pleasant fog hit her mind.<br/>Angel sighed again as the relaxation took her and her mind began to float, and she looked up at the roof in a relaxed and pleased daze as Telise straightened and turned away, picking up the now empty tray and making her way out of the room, the door sliding closed behind her and leaving Angel alone, lost in the pleasant tingling fog as her head lolled to the side and a small smile appeared on her face.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>It was quite a bit longer later this time when awareness began to return to Angel’s mind, and again she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut as the nausea hit her system, groaning as she almost heaved. The room was impossibly bright, and the table underneath herself was almost painfully cold, even her clothes felt scratchy on her skin. Shaking her head back and forth to clear it, her skin felt itchy just from the air touching along it due to the miniscule draft.</p><p>Groaning again, she slowly opened her eyes and coughed, the nausea forming a lump in her throat that neither coughing or swallowing seemed to dislodge. She felt <em> uncomfortable </em>, and it had her shifting and fidgeting for over an hour as it gradually faded and sensations returned to normal. Seemingly only a few minutes after the world was normal again, the door opened and Telise returned, looking just as calm and casual as she had earlier.</p><p>Telise sank back down into the chair she usually occupied and crossed her hands on her lap once again, giving Angel a soft smile.</p><p> </p><p>“How are you feeling?”</p><p>“...fine.” Angel narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Bored.”</p><p>“Comfortable?”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking at the question, and the almost playful tone with which Telise asked it, Angel mulled over the cold look in the woman’s eyes before her mouth fell open and a cold shiver of dread went through her system in realisation, as if she’d been dunked in a bath of ice water.</p><p>Humming in satisfaction at Angel’s reaction, Telise repeated her actions once more, standing to make her way next to the table, forcibly turning Angel’s head even as the girl thrashed to try and get away, and sinking her fangs deeply into the helpless girls neck, injecting slightly even more venom than the previous time until Angel’s eyes rolled back into her head and she groaned as she melted onto the table, her muscles shivering from the wash of relaxation and fog that went through her mind and her system.</p><p>Lacking even the strength and awareness to whimper in relaxed contentment like she wanted to, Angel tried her best to fight off the fog but all of her mental attempts failed, and she was washed away in it.</p><p> </p><p>An unknowable amount of time later, she once again began to return to herself, only to gasp violently as the brightness of the lights above, and then retch at the nausea that hit her stomach and throat. Every inch of her skin felt as if it were covered in itching grains of sand, and she whined in discomfort as she writhed in an attempt to scratch it away, only for the cold of the table underneath her to somehow seem so ice cold she wanted to shiver.</p><p>Painfully slowly, over the course of what was well over a full hour, the sensations faded and her body returned to normal, and she laid panting and helpless as her mind properly recalibrated, but even returned to her senses entirely she felt the lingering irritations of the discomfort.</p><p>When she finally managed to open her eyes without the light of the room blinding her, she saw Telise sitting in her chair and waiting patiently.</p><p>Her breath catching in her throat, Angel’s eyes widened in terror, and she couldn’t speak louder than a whisper.</p><p>“You cruel, cruel <b> <em>bitch.</em> </b>”</p><p>Telise simply readjusted in her seat slightly so that she was sitting up slightly straighter and more attentively. “I’d still like to know more about you, if you’ve changed your mind.”</p><p>Laying still as a statue, Angel forced herself to swallow the lump of fear that had lodged itself in her gut, and she found herself unable to blink for the longest time as Telise stared at her patiently. Eventually her heartrate began to slow and her fear began to abate, and she looked away, closing her eyes in shame and surrender.</p><p>“What...do you want to know?”</p><p> </p><p>“You were locked in the hospital basement and regularly tortured starting from when you were thirteen, through to when you were seventeen, yes?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Angel’s failure to correct the terminology that Telise had used had Telise raise an eyebrow slightly, and the corner of her mouth twitched in immense satisfaction. But she didn’t allow any of it to enter her voice.</p><p>“It made me wonder why they ended up so afraid of you and your capabilities as you grew older and your aura likely grew even stronger. Why they gave up <em> any </em>hope of helping you...what the last chance they gave you was.”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes in dread as a shiver of fear went through her gut, Angel bit her lips as she suspected what question was coming. Taking the memory, she locked it behind a vault door inside of her own mind, shoving it in roughly and squeezing her eyes shut tighter.</p><p>Nodding in curiosity, Telise tilted her head. “I’d like to see.”</p><p>Freezing again, Angel’s eyes widened as flashes of that particular memory went through her mind, and her breath caught in her throat. “No. Not that day. <em> Please </em> not that day. I can’t. I <b> <em>won’t.</em> </b>”</p><p> </p><p>Unanswering, Telise rose from her chair and made her way over, and Angel wasn’t too paralysed this time to thrash and try to pull away, as fruitless as she knew that it was going to be. Squeezing her eyes shut in dread, she pulled away as best as she could even as Telise turned her head by her chin and sank her fangs into her neck yet again. In only a few moments, any desire to fight had left Angel’s body, and she let out a pleased whine as she slumped, shivering pleasantly as her skin was tickled by the cool air of the room as if kissed by it.</p><p>When Telise withdrew her fangs from Angel’s neck, she only pulled back up a few inches before reaching with three of her fingers and stroking them through Angel’s hair softly, the sensations so enhanced and so powerful that Angel gasped and tried to press up into the touch, her eyelids fluttering closed.</p><p>Speaking softly, Telise brought her aura to the surface, and closed her own eyes as she ran her fingertips from Angel’s hair to instead rest them on her forehead.</p><p> </p><p>“Think about that day, for me...”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As the world rippled back into view for both of them, they found themselves in the basement hallway yet again, though there were a few differences. Lights had been replaced, a few other doors seemed to have been changed to now be in use, other small signs of change. Telise raised her eyebrow in curiosity as she gazed around, her eyes falling on the same reinforced door as before, except now it was far heavier, the steel infused with hardlight dust and the door now requiring pistons to be opened.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Angel was glaring down at the floor hatefully, squeezing her fists together as she practically vibrated with rage. Her eyes flicked up to Telise with a desperate fury.</p><p>“One day, I’m going to fucking kill you.”</p><p>“Perhaps.” Telise turned her head to face her, and gave a miniscule cold smile. “But not today. Shall we begin?”</p><p> </p><p>Wordlessly, Angel entered the code for the door, and instead of needing to pull it open herself she simply stood back as the door’s hydraulics hissed and it opened slowly, swinging open with a groan and revealing the room, nicely lit and fully repaired. The bookcases were filled to bursting with medical journals and textbooks yet again, and it was clearly during the day as an awake Angel sat at her computer desk, flicking through files with headphones over her ears.</p><p>Noticing that this Angel was a bit older than last time, Telise glanced at Angel with the unspoken question, and Angel answered quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“Late bloomer, still fifteen here.”</p><p>“And already studying medicine?”</p><p>“Started when I was twelve.” Angel answered bluntly and as cold as ice, not giving Telise the satisfaction of any emotion or inflection. There was no point keeping small details, and it might speed Telise up to give them to her and satisfy her curiosity morsel by morsel.</p><p>“Impressive…” Humming in thought, Telise stepped over and studied the work the younger Angel was doing, before glancing over her shoulder. “I’m beginning to suspect you’re holding out on me. I’ve seen no signs of this level of intelligence from you thus far.”</p><p>Eyes flashing in anger, Angel clenched her fists again as her temper broke, and she snarled viciously. “I’m strapped to a table and you’re pumping me with drugs, not much room to be particularly clever.”</p><p>“Certainly smarter than your teammates.”</p><p>“Don’t you say a <b> <em>WORD </em> </b>against my friends.” Angel snarled, her eyes flashing white in rage as she stepped over, entering the room for the first time as her anger burnt through her for a moment before she calmed herself as best she could, failing to maintain her ice. “You have no idea what they were capable of.”</p><p>“I share Kakra’s memories. I’m aware of their capabilities.”</p><p>“We’re more than just how we fight. But a cruel predator like you could <b> <em>NEVER </em> </b>understand that.”</p><p>“You’re wrong.”</p><p>Telise said it so simply that it threw Angel from her anger, and she leant back with a blink that quickly turned into a frown. “What do you mean?”</p><p>Smiling a small cold smile, Telise looked out of the door as the sound of footsteps began, and she glanced over to Angel. “I understand more than you want me to.”</p><p> </p><p>Hearing the footsteps, Angel froze, her eyes widening as she remembered where they were and what they were about to see. The memory corrected itself and showed the room door sealed closed, and the younger Angel at her desk looked over her shoulder as the pistons hissed and the door opened, revealing her mother and another doctor.</p><p>Only a few months had passed between the two memories, but Georgia looked far older than she had before. She looked tired, and hairs were grey. But she gave her daughter a kind smile as the younger Angel took off her headphones, the relaxed expression on the girl’s face being replaced with apprehension and, despite how much she tried to hide it, anxiety.</p><p>The older Angel watched with a shielded expression, her hands by her sides as she looked at her younger self with an expression that could only be described as a guarded dread.</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning honey.” Georgia stepped in and kissed her daughter’s forehead, and the younger Angel smiled.</p><p>“Hey mum....it’s time then?”</p><p>“It is...let’s get this over and done with, okay?” Georgia gave her daughter a reassuring expression, and placed her hand on her shoulder. “Then we can work on getting you home.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding wordlessly, the younger Angel stood from her chair and sighed, grabbing a dark pink hoodie from her bed and pulling it on comfortably, zipping it up and putting her hands in her pockets, almost a mirror of the older version of herself. Telise glanced over at the older one, who was watching herself.</p><p>While crying.</p><p>Telise watched as a few tears escaped Angel’s eyes as she watched her younger self be guided out of the room with her mother’s hand on her back. Both Telise and Angel followed silently, Telise’s face curious and pensive as she kept her hands behind her back, meanwhile the older Angel kept her face as sealed as possible though she couldn’t keep the anxiety out of the shaking of her hands that were clenched into tight fists.</p><p> </p><p>“So where are we being taken today?” Telise asked without looking over at Angel next to her, noting as instead of going deeper underground they were instead stepping into an elevator to head up to the surface.</p><p>“Why bother ask me? You’ll see.” Her voice dead, Angel shot a dead glare to Telise before looking back straight ahead.</p><p>They rose to the streets of Haven, and stepped out of the hospital, beginning a patient walk towards a large modern building, easily five stories high. Raising an eyebrow at it as they approached, Telise tilted her head.</p><p>“I don’t recall that building.”</p><p>“No, you wouldn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking over to where Angel had replied, Telise raised both of her eyebrows and hummed in curiosity, but otherwise didn’t speak. The younger Angel was led into the large building by her mother and the other doctor, and they wound through a series of corridors until they reached a large blast door, a larger group of doctors and scientists out front talking and clearly waiting for their arrival.</p><p>“Good morning Georgia, Angel.” One of them, an older woman with silver hair and wise eyes, gave them both a soft smile as they approached. “Are you ready, honey?”</p><p>The younger Angel sighed, looking down with a nod. “Yeah. Sure.”</p><p>“It’ll be alright. We’re ready for this. We’ll take care of you.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>The woman was quiet for a moment, before reaching out and placing her hand on Angel’s shoulder as reassuringly as possible, meeting her eye with a kind smile. “We know enough of what you’re capable of that this facility can handle it, Angel. I promise. It’s capable of surviving far worse than you.”</p><p>It was clear that the younger Angel didn’t believe her, but instead of arguing she simply nodded and forced a small smile. Satisfied, the woman turned away.</p><p>As conversation continued, planning in place for whatever was to follow, Telise instead looked over at the older Angel, who was watching silently as Georgia led her younger version through the heavy blast door and into a large chamber the size of a basketball court, the walls reinforced with hardlight dust and a series of sensors lining them that were trained in on the center of the room.</p><p> </p><p>The younger Angel walked into the middle of the room as if she knew what to expect, and waited patiently, stripping off her hoodie and tossing it to the side, before shyly removing her shirt as well and dropping it to join her hoodie on the floor.</p><p>Only Georgia and the other woman were in the room as well, and with quiet words to the younger Angel they slowly attached a series of sensors to her skin, attaching patches to each wrist, one on each side of her neck, and one on each of her shoulder blades.</p><p>Telise nodded in understanding, turning to the older Angel. “To test your output?”</p><p>Almost as if she didn’t hear the question, Angel turned and began to walk back towards the blast doors. “Come on. Observation deck was upstairs.”</p><p> </p><p>Through the door, up another set of stairs, and then another heavy blast door, and they were in the observation deck above the testing chamber, the glass heavily reinforced and the room outfitted with rows of terminals all showing different information that the sensors were detecting. Everything from Angel’s vitals, to the temperature of the room, and keeping a reading on potential fluctuations in the local power grid.</p><p>Humming in fascination as she looked around at all the monitors and instruments around the room, Telise made sure to memorise the information that was being displayed on each one, before looking to where the older Angel was practically pressed against the glass as she looked down at where her younger self was being left alone, covered in a range of different sensors attached to her body.</p><p>Frowning for a moment as she thought, Telise accessed her mother’s memories and knowledge and looked through it all quickly, before humming in satisfaction as she found what she was looking for.</p><p>For each individual person, their aura manifested slightly differently, and often concentrated in different spots that were individual to each person. For some people it was their hands, for <em> most </em>people it was their eyes. But they were the spots where aura was most heavily concentrated when at a dormant level and the person’s Semblance wasn’t actively being called upon.</p><p> </p><p>In Angel’s case, her aura clearly focused in her shoulder blades. Hence the sensors today, and the needles in those areas when she was locked down.</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in understanding, Telise stepped up next to Angel and folded her hands behind her back as she watched quietly, not acknowledging when Angel’s mother and the other woman stepped in and joined the other doctors a few moments later. The older Angel was barely blinking as she looked down at her younger self sadly, her eyes heavy, and as more monitors and screens were calibrated in the room behind them she raised a hand and placed it against the glass.</p><p>“They were so confident that <em>here</em> they’d finally get a grasp of what was going on. This place was built to test major energy weapons.” Her voice was quiet as she spoke to Telise, and she didn’t look over at her, still looking down at where her younger self was standing, hands in the pockets of her jeans and looking off into nothing as she waited.</p><p>Telise tilted her head. “Was this the first time they’d done something like this?”</p><p>“They’d tried smaller scale stuff in the past, just in the hospital, and it never ended well. But they’d just built their shiny new test facility. Figured it would do the trick.”</p><p>“You were a perfectly obedient guinea pig, I suppose.” Telise hummed, tapping her fingers on her palm behind her back.</p><p>Telise was surprised when Angel didn’t argue or object, and the girl’s expression didn’t even flinch or shift as she kept staring down at herself with the same heavy eyes, her fingers digging into the glass slightly. The sound of electronics behind them caught both of their attention, but the only reaction was when Angel sighed, her voice quiet.</p><p> </p><p>“Here it goes.”</p><p> </p><p>The woman in charge of the experiment stood near the window as well, naturally unable to notice the other two, and she flicked down the microphone on a headset that she wore, keeping her voice confident and soft as she spoke into the test chamber itself.</p><p>“We’re all set up here, honey. Feel free to start, and you can take your time.”</p><p>When the woman stopped talking, the older Angel spoke up, her voice burdened and dead. “They always approached it as if it was something I could turn on and off. Like how other people can raise and lower their aura through focus.”</p><p>“Can’t you?”</p><p>“I can. But I shouldn’t.” Angel sighed, looking down and taking her hand from the glass so she could wrap her arms around herself. But what caught Telise’s curiosity was that it wasn’t dread in her face, or fear. It was almost guilt. Almost shame. “I don’t want to be here.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment as she took in Angel’s entire demeanour, Telise pressed with her aura slightly and the memory around them froze still. Noticing the sudden absence of noise and movement in the room, Angel looked around in confusion, her arms still over her chest, before her eyes flicked to where Telise was standing and watching her with an unreadable expression.</p><p>Licking her lips nervously, Angel swallowed.</p><p>“What is it? Why stop?”</p><p>“How did they get you so ashamed of your own power, Angel?”</p><p>“...huh?” Angel blinked, a strange wash of ice going over her skin at the scrutinising stare Telise was giving her, completely absent of any emotion except for one Angel could only describe as pity.</p><p>“In a moment we’re about to observe you unleash the full extent of your power, and you’re curled in on yourself. They did <em> this </em>to you.” Gesturing to how Angel was standing, reserved and withdrawn into herself, Telise tutted in a mixture of disappointment and pity.</p><p>“That’s not…” Unwrapping her arms from herself, Angel let them drop down by her sides as she met Telise’s stare with one of her own. “It’s not like that. I can’t control it, and no matter how hard I tried back then I never got any better.”</p><p>“And did they even help you?”</p><p>“Of course they did!” Angel’s voice rose at the dismissive glint in Telise’s eyes, and she stepped closer, her own eyes narrowing. “They did all of this. For me.”</p><p>“This isn’t helping you. This is testing you, experimenting with you. Just like locking you in that cell wasn’t containment, it was imprisonment. And that bed? Torture, not protection. Look at you.” Telise gestured down to where the younger Angel was in the middle of the room, stuck with patches of sensors. “Did this help?”</p><p>“You...don’t even know what’s about to happen.” Angel pressed, but she did glance down at her younger self for a moment, and her eyes returned to being sad for a bare instant before her anger returned and she looked back to a cold composed Telise. “It wasn’t their fault.”</p><p>“Do you truly believe it was yours?”</p><p>“I…” Angel hesitated, resisting the urge to wrap her arms back around herself. She scoffed, and let it turn into a scowl. “Maybe. I couldn’t control it.”</p><p>“You were a child. Control is trained. You were never given the chance.”</p><p>“How would <em> you </em> know? You don’t know me, you don’t know what happened. You don’t know what I did and didn’t get the chance to do!” The defiant anger finally returning to her eyes, Angel snarled and clenched her fists. “I did <em> everything </em>they asked of me and tried to get me to do, but I never got any better.”</p><p>“And they guided you to blame yourself for it.”</p><p>“That’s <b> <em>not </em> </b>fair!”</p><p>“Betrayal <em> isn’t </em>fair, Angel.”</p><p> </p><p>At the word ‘betrayal’ Angel’s eyes widened in shock and surprise, and her anger washed away under a tidal wave of ice cold water. She actively took a step back as her heart missed a beat in surprise. Tilting her head with widened but suspicious eyes, her words were as carefully measured as she could manage despite the alarms sounding in her head.</p><p>“...what do you mean by betrayal?”</p><p>Watching her silently for a few moments, her face still cold and composed and her hands folded behind her back, Telise waited for Angel to gain control of her heart rate before she spoke again.</p><p>“We’re not meant to be caged. But they were too afraid to set you free. They never taught you how to fly. Instead you got <em> this. </em> ” She gestured with her hand towards the window, but she kept her eyes trained on Angel’s. “If they did it out of love, then it’s a betrayal of your heart. If they did it out of fear, it’s a betrayal of your trust. They failed you Angel. And they didn’t let you out of your cage until your wings were clipped and you believed it was <em> your </em>fault you couldn’t fly.”</p><p>When Angel didn’t say anything, instead staring at Telise with wide unblinking eyes as her mind somehow simultaneously ground to a halt and also went haywire in the same moment, Telise looked over to the window and allowed the memory to resume.</p><p> </p><p>Neither of them really listened as the woman softly gave the younger Angel a countdown, but towards the end the older Angel managed to return to her senses enough to look down into the center of the chamber.</p><p> </p><p>Down below, as the count reached zero, the younger Angel closed her eyes and concentrated, reaching inside of herself and <em> feeling </em>the seemingly infinite reservoir of energy always boiling and swirling just underneath the surface of her skin, inside of her consciousness, inside of her entire being. It was bright and warm, a deep ocean of her own spirit that always threatened to spill out everywhere.</p><p>Every moment of the day it took immense self-control to keep it inside of herself, her control and focus weren’t allowed to slip for a single moment, because accidents would happen if she made a mistake and her willpower flickered even just for a second.</p><p>Bringing her aura to the surface wasn’t a matter of <em> pulling </em> it up, for her. It was a matter of <em> letting </em>it out.</p><p>As she slowly opened the restraints inside of herself that she forcibly kept in place at all times, she felt the glow begin to pour through herself, washing through her skin. It didn’t hurt, it never did at first, and she felt the familiar shimmering come over herself.</p><p> </p><p>As she began to glow brighter, her skin went from its normal gentle tan to almost a rich gold which glowed with a bright inner white light, her eyes losing their normal forest green colour and instead swimming with white light so vibrant that in the dark her eyes would have shown like torches. Her hair lost its dark colour, a brown so dark it was almost black was instead washed into white, shimmering with light and shifting as if in a gentle breeze.</p><p>She tried to keep the floodgates slow in how they opened, but when they got an inch it was always almost impossible to prevent them from taking a mile, and she felt herself glowing brighter and brighter as her aura overtook her entire being, her mind free of all thoughts except for the sensation of her power being allowed to come to the surface.</p><p>Her willpower was failing. The floodgates were about to burst open.</p><p> </p><p>Up in the observation room, the terminals and monitors were beeping loudly, with alarms and detectors blaring with their noise as every sensor was gradually reaching its maximum. It was almost impossible to see what was happening in the test chamber itself due to the light, the windows in the room completely washed in the white light.</p><p>As the older Angel stared intently down into the test chamber, determined to watch her younger self as she gradually lost control, Telise instead made sure to flick her eyes to every monitor and memorise the readings even as they climbed higher and higher. As certain numbers and readings appeared, she raised her eyebrows and made sure to commit them to memory, only for her mouth to drop open slightly as the numbers climbed even higher.</p><p>A strange sound began to squeak in the room, a loud whining screech, before the windows suddenly shattered under the sheer pressure and force of the energy assailing it. Terminals and consoles were abandoned as the scientists present fled the room, but not before Georgia hit a button to activate the dampeners in the test chamber itself in an attempt to suppress the rising energy.</p><p>It didn’t work. From inside the observation room where they remained, Telise watched as the dampeners on the walls of the test chamber hummed to life and began to attempt to draw in the excess energy, only to be quickly overflowed and spark in failure.</p><p>And then, in one fatal moment, the overwhelmed Angel’s willpower broke under the strain, and her Semblance released her aura in all of its might.</p><p> </p><p>All that existed in Telise’s and the older Angel’s eyes was impossibly bright light, and the buffering of hurricane force winds as the onslaught of energy tore the test chamber apart, the terminals and monitors in the observation room turning to ash from the energy as the pressure succeeded in cracking through the walls and exploded through the opening to vent. The facility rumbled in its foundations, and Telise could only watch as the walls and floor began to turn from steel and tile, into ash beneath their feet, the building itself incinerating without much chance to resist.</p><p>There was no way of knowing just how long it continued once the floodgates broke and the final explosion of energy commenced, but when the light gradually faded and it was eventually bearable for both Telise and the older Angel to open their eyes, they were under the light of the morning sky. Around them were ruins, the remains of collapsed walls and shattered floors, the observation deck having collapsed beneath them, and Telise’s Semblance safely materialising them in the center of what was once a test chamber but was now ground zero of an explosion that had turned the facility to either ash or ruin.</p><p>The younger Angel gradually dimmed, but not entirely. Eventually her senses returned to her enough that she could look around in horror at what had happened, and her eyes widened in severe horror as she lurched, a lump of guilt and shame punching her in the gut. Grabbing at her own head in shock, her mouth fell open and all she could manage was a strained squeak before she dropped to her knees.</p><p> </p><p>Silent for a moment, the younger Angel suddenly released an agonised scream and drove her fist into the broken flooring beneath herself in her rage and failure, punching it again and again as she wordlessly screamed her hatred of herself and what she always managed to do.</p><p>While Telise simply watched curiously, a small frown on her face as she pondered what was happening in front of her, the older Angel dropped to her own knees in front of her younger self in the impulse to comfort her, but knowing she had no way of doing so, a few tears dropping down her own face.</p><p>Her younger self raged and despaired wordlessly, eventually ceasing in her punching of the floor and instead merely slumping onto her hands and knees, panting. The older Angel’s face turned from despair into a mixture of outrage and pain of her own.</p><p> </p><p>“It hurt so much. Every moment of every day.”</p><p> </p><p>Watching silently and patiently, as immaculate and composed as ever, Telise gave a miniscule nod of acknowledgement, but otherwise didn’t speak. At the lack of response, Angel looked back to her younger self as the girl’s despairing rage began to devolve into exhaustion, and the sound of rubble being disturbed got the attention of all three of them as a small group of who appeared to be security guards and a few doctors managed to get their way through into the massive destroyed space.</p><p>Words of comfort and concern were spoken as she was approached, but the younger Angel didn’t respond until one of the doctors attempted to inject her with a sedative to calm her, and she instead aggressively pushed him away and stumbled to her feet. Even though she was speaking, neither Telise or the older Angel could make out the words, the memory being too distorted by rage and despair to be truly clear and accurate.</p><p>As the security guards began to approach cautiously, reassuring words being spoken to her to attempt to calm her, the younger Angel’s face turned to rage and hostility and her body once again began to glow. The moment her energy returned, the guards and doctors halted and stepped back in nervousness, but eventually Angel forced herself to dim.</p><p>But some of her glow persisted</p><p>Only a few more words were exchanged before the younger Angel relented, and began to stumble her way towards the rough path through the rubble, stumbling a few steps before collapsing into a crumpled heap. The energy still leaking out of her caused the rubble near her to smoke and rumble from the pressure of it, but as the final dregs of energy dispersed in her unconsciousness the surroundings stabilised.</p><p> </p><p>The older Angel was still on her knees, watching everything with an exhausted anger, the sort of anger that’s more of a scar than it is an emotion. It was tinged with a despair that Telise saw was so unique and individual that it would have looked unnatural on anyone who wasn’t Angel herself.<br/>Satisfied with everything she had seen, she didn’t speak a word to Angel or give her any warning before the memory faded around them and they fell into darkness.</p><p>As she returned to the present world, Angel gasped in a breath from the psychological jolt, and her eyes opened wide in the spasm. Looking around wildly in a moment of panic, she gradually remembered where she was and what was happening in reality, and she relaxed. Forcing her breaths to slow and deepen, Angel looked over to where Telise had stepped back, and was clearly deep in thought as she stared off into nothingness at a nearby wall.</p><p> </p><p>With Telise saying nothing, Angel quickly became aware of her discomfort. Despite being back in her real body, everything felt...wrong. She was itchy, and sweating, but also cold at the same time. It was like she had a fever.</p><p>No matter how much she shifted she couldn’t get comfortable, and she scrunched up her face in displeasure at it.</p><p>She was thankful that the memory was so fresh on her mind that she could distract herself by lingering on it, despite the pain that thinking about it caused her.</p><p>Eventually, after the better part of half an hour of the discomfort and feverishness increasing for Angel, Telise spoke in a curious tone.</p><p>“Did they ever tell you how many casualties there were from that incident? If they did, I would like to know.”</p><p> </p><p>Surprising Telise, there wasn’t any normal reaction of defiance or hostility from Angel, instead her eyes turned from the discomfort into a simmering fury, an anger born of pain and years of lamenting over it, an anger tended to over time like a fire, stoked and preserved until it could sustain itself purely by memory.</p><p>The rest of her face didn’t change, only her eyes.</p><p>There was such a pure rage and anger in it, such a potent <em> hurt </em>, that Telise couldn’t help but find herself slightly entranced by the subtle way it seemed to change Angel’s entire face. Her youth almost vanished entirely, the softness of her lingering baby fat somehow seemed to turn invisible, leaving only the sharper edges of outrage.</p><p>Even though Angel didn’t answer straight away, Telise didn’t mind. She studied the girl, studied the markings inside of her eyes that what she was feeling had left on her over the years.</p><p>With each memory, with each conversation, each flash of Angel’s fierce defiance, Telise was understanding her more and more. Understanding what it was that drove her. What it was that gave her that incredible willpower and strength.<br/>But she would wait a little longer. Until Angel would be able to see it for herself.</p><p>It was only a few moments later, but to the entranced Telise it could have been an eternity, but Angel did answer, her voice deadened except for the tinges of pained rage she couldn’t hide.</p><p> </p><p>“Seven. Seven people.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding slowly as she pondered it, Telise hummed in thought and folded her hands behind her back once again. “I see. Seven. That’s interesting…”</p><p> </p><p>Falling silent, Telise lost herself in her thoughts again, meanwhile Angel continued to shuffle and fidget. The lingering anger and pain from the memory were fresh in her head, and her heartrate was fast and heavy from the sparks of rage that persisted, but it only served to worsen her agitated discomfort.</p><p>Even though she had fully returned to self-awareness, she was whoozy and irritated, letting out as silent a whine as she could due to what felt like a cold sweat across her skin.</p><p>“Thank you for sharing. That was very enlightening.” Telise gave Angel a respectful smile and nod, before turning to make her way towards the door. “I’ll return with some lunch in a few hours.”</p><p> </p><p>As Telise neared the door, Angel’s self-control broke, and she hated herself with a black fury even as she called out. “Wait!”</p><p>Pausing at the door, Telise took half a second to give a hidden vicious smile of satisfaction, before hiding it and looking over her shoulder with her eyebrows raised in curiosity.</p><p>“Yes Angel?”</p><p>“I…” Starting to speak, the discomfort within her skin was beginning to drive her crazy as it increased every minute. Angel opened her mouth again to continue, before the last shred of her defiance kicked in, and she looked away. “Never mind.”</p><p>“As you wish.”</p><p>Telise opened the door and took a step out, only for Angel to call out yet again.</p><p>“No, wait. <em><strong>Wait</strong></em>.”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p> </p><p>Unwilling and seemingly unable to voice what she wanted to say, Angel shifted in her restraints and looked away in conflicted shame. Telise stepped back inside of the room and closed the door to give them privacy once again, before walking over and standing next to the table where her captive was shuffling and twitching.</p><p>“What can I do for you?”</p><p>“...you know what.”</p><p>“I do. But I will only do it, if you ask for it.” Telise’s voice was cold, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t entirely hide the playfulness in it, and Angel’s eyes flashed with hatred and anger.</p><p>The two stared at each other, two minutes going by silently, until Angel’s face crumpled and she surrendered, looking away in immense shame.</p><p> </p><p>“Please...bite me?” Her voice dropped to a disgusted whisper, and a hot tear left her eye. “...you win.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at her quietly, Telise tilted her head in approval, before reaching out with one of her hands softly and running the fingertips down the skin of Angel’s cheek and neck. Unable to stop herself from shivering under the touch, Angel squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her head away from it.</p><p>“I would very much enjoy it if you were this polite and agreeable during all our future conversations, Angel.” </p><p>Telise gave the girl a small smile, and Angel’s skin flushed in shame. After a pause, Angel nodded in agreement to the unspoken terms, and Telise smiled slightly wider, waiting until Angel opened her eyes again so that she could see the approval in her smile.</p><p>“Thank you. I’ve enjoyed all of our talks so far, Angel. I would like <em> you </em>to enjoy them as well. Though I’m not the most talented conversationalist, I’m glad I can offer something to the interactions that makes you happy to engage with me.”</p><p>Without even attempting to hide the playful satisfaction in her tone, Telise wasn’t surprised when fury and hatred flashed inside of Angel’s eyes. Those were two emotions the girl had in infinite reserves, and Telise was increasingly <em> fascinated </em>by it. But Angel’s eyes did lock onto hers with hatred.</p><p>“One day, I’m going to <b> <em>kill </em> </b> you for this. For <b> <em>all </em> </b>of this.”</p><p>Telise reached out and ran her fingers through Angel’s soft hair, her face still with a small smile. “But for now….?”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes in defeat and the anger and hatred fading for now, Angel scrunched up her face in hatred as she turned her head to expose her neck.</p><p> </p><p>With Angel’s eyes closed, Telise allowed the satisfied smile to cover her entire face, her eyes sparkling in the victory as she bent down. Pressing a soft kiss to the skin of Angel’s neck first, and revelling in the disgusted shiver, she slowly and neatly sank her fangs into her and began to pump her full of venom.</p><p>Whining in relief as it washed through her, the clouds and tingles washing away the discomfort, the anger, the pain of the memory, the shame of her surrender, Angel’s mouth ticked upwards in a tired elated smile as her eyes rolled up into her head and she slumped, defeated and pleased.</p><p>Releasing Angel’s neck after pumping her with the largest dose of her venom so far, Telise pressed another soft kiss to where she’d bitten, and this time the shiver she got in response was anything but disgusted. Smiling, Telise straightened up and looked down at the euphoric and calm girl, before turning and making her way out of the room with her hands behind her back.</p><p> </p><p>They would continue tomorrow. Angel spending a whole night without her venom ought to make her far more willing to cooperate.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Where Kakra is physically cruel, Telise is psychologically cruel. She's going to toy with pretty much everyone. You have been warned.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. The Feathered Maiden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lexica follows through on her agreement with Chrystal and leads team SKTC into the forest to finally come face to face with the mysterious 'Raven', who they hope holds the answers they need.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t surprise any of SKTC when they discovered they’d each made the independent decision to wake up just before dawn to prepare for the morning. When Tacita opened her eyes, curled up on her side next to Kylar, he was already awake and looking up at the roof in thought even as he held her. Feeling her stir, he tightened his grip on her and pulled her closer in, and she happily obliged, resting her head on his shoulder and pressing a soft kiss to his collarbone.</p><p>Letting out a sigh, he began to run his fingers through her long blonde hair, feeling the soft strands between his fingers as he stared up at the ceiling, lost in his own concerns and trying to predict the day. But there were so many variables that it was impossible to come up with any sort of picture of what might be about to happen.</p><p>Tacita watched him for a while, her eyes closed as she got a bit more rest even in just a light doze, but as her own mind began to wake up and come up with her own anxieties and concerns she gave up on getting anymore sleep.</p><p>Not wanting to truly break the quiet of the room, she made sure to keep her voice to barely above a whisper.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you okay, love?”</p><p>Shuffling slightly, Kylar turned his head to look down at her, before pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. “It’s strange, waking up having to consider that it might be the last day of your life.”</p><p>“But also the day we might finally start getting the answers that we need.”</p><p>“Optimist.”</p><p>“Oh we might die as well.” She gave him a small smile, stretching up to press a light kiss to his lips. “But if we die with a couple of answers, that’s better than nothing.”</p><p>Kylar laughed softly, nodding in agreement. “I’ve been trying to plan out the questions, but we don’t even know who we’re going to be talking to.”</p><p>“Raven.” Mulling over the name quietly, Tacita frowned.</p><p>“That’s just a name. It’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it.”</p><p> </p><p>Humming in agreement, having had the same problem, Tacita pushed herself up onto her elbow so she was looking down at him. When the sheet slid down past her shoulders Kylar was able to run his fingertips along the skin of her back, and she relaxed into the touch, the small pulses of anxiety she’d been feeling fading slightly.</p><p>“Do you remember waking up during the tournament knowing that the battle might come at any moment?”</p><p>“Of course.” Kylar scoffed, his eyes closing for a moment at the lump in his gut. “I don’t think I’m ever going to forget.”</p><p>“Is it just me, or does it feel different this time?” Tacita’s question was quiet, contemplative, and Kylar found himself pausing in thought.</p><p>It did feel different. It was dulled. A background noise more than a sharp panic.</p><p>Things were still clear, and focused. His mind was worried, but not distracted enough he couldn’t think properly.</p><p>The adrenaline was ready. But it was waiting.</p><p> </p><p>He nodded. “It does.”</p><p>“It feels easier, even though I know it’s not going to be.” Her voice was still soft, and an undertone of anxiety began to appear in it. “We’re potentially going up against a bandit queen and a Maiden. And we’ve gone up against a Maiden before.”</p><p>“Maybe that’s it. We have a better idea of what we might be up against.”</p><p>“Do we?”</p><p>“No.” Kylar admitted easily, the words having felt hollow even as he’d said them. “We don’t. Maybe it’s because the stakes are smaller.”</p><p>“<em> Are </em>they?”</p><p>Tacita often had a nervous habit of asking questions as her way of conducting conversation, rarely saying actual statements. The fact she was doing it had Kylar look up at her properly, and when he saw the spark of concern in her eyes he reached up to run his fingers through her hair again, brushing strands behind her ear to get them off of her face. Leaning into the touch, she closed her eyes.</p><p>“Kylar, just because it’s just our lives at risk doesn’t make the stakes smaller. Haven is on the line.”</p><p>“Yup.” Nodding, he thinned his lips and raised his eyebrows in amused surrender. </p><p>When he didn’t say anything further, she leant down and kissed him again, pressing down on him slightly to deepen the contact, and sighing against his lips when his fingers slid from her cheek to her neck. Touching his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, she smirked when she felt him roll his eyes and break off the kiss lightly.</p><p>“We have to get up.” Raising an eyebrow up at her, Kylar grinned when she pouted.</p><p>“Last day of our lives though.”</p><p>“<em> Potentially. </em>” Sitting up, slowly enough Tacita was able to shuffle so he didn’t push her, Kylar stretched his arms above his head. “Less certainly so if we prepare properly beforehand.”</p><p>Sighing in resignation, Tacita nodded, pushing the sheets off of herself and smirking when Kylar immediately stared. Raising an eyebrow at him in return, mirroring the expression he’d given her, she stretched her own arms above her head.</p><p>“Preparation, remember?”</p><p>“That’s not fair.”</p><p> </p><p>Laughing, she stood and began to get dressed, having kept her outfit laid out and prepared the night before so it was easy to do so. Leaving her coat off for now, she began the tedious process of brushing out her hair and braiding it for the day, watching through the mirror as Kylar dressed as well, preparing his dust pouches along his belts.</p><p>Luckily Ywitawa was large enough they’d both been able to restock, even though prices had been far more expensive than it would be in one of the larger cities or Haven itself. The Atlesian trade embargo may have been hurting the cities, but the towns were suffering for it the most considering that trade caravans themselves had slowed to a crawl.</p><p>But, Logan and Tesse had been very generous, and the team had savings of their own they’d been building up over their missions just in case of emergencies. They’d certainly put a large dent in their spending cash, but plenty of towns had been willing to exchange supplies for them killing local Grimm.</p><p>The days of long since passed, of Huntsmen travelling the roads of their own volition and killing beasts in exchange for food and a place to sleep, had returned to the world.</p><p> </p><p>Loading her quiver methodically, Tacita made sure her Semblance was covering the tavern, keeping an eye and ear on each sound of movement coming from every room both upstairs and down, and she glanced up when she picked up the sound she’d been waiting for.</p><p>“Chrystal’s awake and almost dressed.”</p><p>“And Shina?”</p><p>“Room’s empty. He’s probably been doing his morning training. He’ll be back in time.”</p><p>Making a non-committal noise, Kylar finished loading Myriadisca and stood, slinging his staff onto its back where it stuck to the small pin of gravity dust on the back of his pouch harness, and he ran his hands through his hair, knowing it was likely going to be a losing battle to try and get it perfectly under control like he was able to before. It had grown out enough that it had developed its own ideas of how it wanted to sit, and while Tacita found it rather ruggish and handsome Kylar instead found it annoying.</p><p>They’d each been changing in appearance in their months on the road. It was expected, obviously. They were each a bit fitter, their muscles a bit more defined as their body fat dropped away from the fourteen-hour daily exercise and the change in diet.</p><p>For the most part, each of them had longer hair. Except for Chrystal, who kept cutting hers with a knife to keep it just below her ears, doing a messy job of it that still somehow suited her.</p><p>But she kept making the valid point that it was hard to jump, climb, do flips and somersaults, and all other manner of acrobatics, when she had hair in her face.</p><p>None of their outfits matched each other anymore either, no longer wearing the same colour scheme they’d worn for the Vytal Tournament, instead returning to their own preferred colour schemes. While each of them found it a comfort to be able to travel in their preferred outfits, something was still lost because of it.</p><p> </p><p>Banishing the thoughts from her mind before they dragged her mood down and became too much of a distraction, Tacita stood from where she’d been seated at the small table to open the door before Chrystal had a chance to knock, the girl’s hand raised ready to do just that as the door swung open in front of her.</p><p>“You love doing that, don’t you.” Chrystal raised an eyebrow at Tacita as she stepped past, and Tacita gave a small grin in response, closing the door.</p><p>Chrystal made her way over to the window and hopped up to sit on it, one foot resting up on it while the other dangled to the ground, and she rested an arm on her raised knee, perfectly balanced.</p><p>“Well, I see no bite marks and the sheets are rather tidy, so I gather you’re both actually rather confident we’ll survive the day. That’s comforting.”</p><p>“Maybe we just weren’t in the mood.” Tacita shrugged casually even as Kylar sighed exasperatedly, always dreading this topic of conversation.</p><p>“I shared a dorm with you two for well over a year. I <em> know </em>you, Tacita. So don’t feed me that bullshit.” Raising an eyebrow in amusement, Chrystal smirked when Tacita grinned at her, before turning to look out the window in the direction of the sky which was only just beginning to rise over the horizon. “But...I’m serious. You guys think we’ll be okay?”</p><p>“I think we’ll get answers. And that’s what we have to care about.” Nodding, Tacita slung her quiver onto her back where it belonged, and clipped her retracted bow onto her belt. </p><p>Ready to go, she walked over to the window to join Chrystal in looking out, stretching her Semblance to keep an eye on the surrounding streets. She sighed in relief.</p><p>“Shina’s on his way back. I can see him.”</p><p>“Even on a day like today he was training.” Frowning in concern, Chrystal felt a pang in her chest. “How does he look?”</p><p> </p><p>Concentrating, Tacita looked out and focused on where Shina was walking back to the tavern, only five streets away. Despite the fact he’d been doing his training, which normally had him work up quite a sweat, he looked completely composed and immaculate, not a buckle or a hair out of place.</p><p>But the normal relaxed confidence in his face was gone, no signs of his normal swagger or stride that often caught people’s attention. Instead his eyes were sharp and his jaw was set. He was in mission mode, and nothing else.</p><p>In less than a minute he was back in the tavern and Tacita was opening the door for him to step in without slowing his stride. Giving her a nod and a small smile, he paused just inside the doorway, his hands by his sides and his sword on his back. Glancing around at his three friends, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.</p><p>With the sheer level of serious focus he seemed to have, it had a sobering effect on the others, and they each found themselves straightening up slightly, Chrystal swinging off the window and hopping to her feet with her hands in the pockets of her jacket.</p><p>Shina looked out of the window to see the sun rising in the sky, and spoke without looking away from it.</p><p>“It’s almost time. Come on, eat light."</p><p>“If any of us can manage to get food down at all.” Chrystal grumbled, and it had the desired effect of having Shina give a small grin. She grinned back, making her way out the door and bumping shoulders with him gently as she passed. “It’ll be okay, Shina. They all seemed surprisingly reasonable.”</p><p>At that, Kylar spoke up, his voice edged with something hostile. “We all saw what they’ve done to plenty of the villages on the way here, Chrystal. They are <em> not </em> anything <em> close </em>to reasonable.”</p><p>“...that’s...fair.” She sighed, looking over her shoulder at him and giving an apologetic look. “I know the danger we’re in.”</p><p>Nodding slowly, Kylar’s face relaxed and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he began to make his way out of the room as well, following after Chrystal. As Tacita followed, she paused at Shina’s side and gave him a reassuring look, taking his hand for a moment and giving it a squeeze.</p><p>“We’ll be okay. It’s just another mission, right?”</p><p>“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?” Shina fell in step beside her, the two of them making their way down the stairs together.</p><p>“It’s how I got to sleep last night. We can do this, Shina. We’ve each been through hell we shouldn’t have survived before.”</p><p>“That doesn’t make us experts. It doesn’t make us ready.”</p><p> </p><p>Finding Kylar and Chrystal already sitting at a table, they joined them, and each ordered a basic breakfast. They ate slowly, in silence, each of them feeling the all-too familiar hum of anxiety they felt before every mission, before every dive into danger.</p><p>But Kylar and Tacita were right, it felt different now. It was dulled, quieter. Easier to manage and easier to ignore. Chrystal wasn’t fidgeting, Shina wasn’t playing with his food, Tacita wasn’t lost in daydreams and Kylar wasn’t spinning around any dust crystals in his fingers.</p><p>Ever since the battle of Beacon, ever since the moment Penny had fallen and they’d known it was time to either fight or die, adrenaline had never felt the same. They hadn’t been afraid in the same ways as they used to.</p><p> </p><p>So they each managed to eat, even if silently, until Chrystal looked up when the tavern door opened and Lexica stepped in, dressed differently than she had been the night before. Instead of her more playful and casual leather pads she’d worn while she was entertaining, she was in what was clearly her normal combat attire, with red and gold leather and cloth tight to her curvaceous body and clearly cut to be distracting, her red and white hair tied back in an almost impossibly elegant warbraid instead of up in the playful bun. She radiated a lethal seductive sensuality as if it was pure power, and Chrystal easily noticed that anyone who looked at her was both entranced and intimidated in the same moment</p><p>A whip was openly visible on her belt, but it wasn’t the mundane leather one she’d wielded the night before either. This new one almost looked as if it was made of metal segments, and even rolled up and hanging on a clip on her belt it was intimidating.</p><p>Sharp eyes flicked around the tavern, ignoring anyone staring at her as if it was normal, before they locked on Chrystal and her face immediately bloomed into a friendly smile.</p><p>Striding her way over confidently, each sway of her hips deliberate and hypnotic enough that Chrystal found herself staring like an idiot, Lexica’s smile went bright as she stood near the table and all four of them looked to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning, I’m Lexica. I met Chrystal last night.” Her voice was still the same liquid gold, and it was friendly enough that even though Shina’s eyes flicked to the whip on her hip he found it easy to smile back.</p><p>Standing relaxedly, Shina offered his hand. “Thank you for helping us, I’m Shina. This is Tacita, and Kylar.”</p><p>“Oh I know who you are.” Lexica took his hand and gripped it firmly in a shake, her eyes flicking up and down his body as she summed him up as a fighter. “Yep. You’re Shina Kamisari alright. I’m...well, I’m happy to help. Mind if I join you for a bit first?”</p><p>“Sure, pull up a chair.”</p><p>“Thanks. We need to talk a bit.”</p><p>As Shina sat back down, Lexica grabbed a spare chair from a nearby table, throwing a dazzling disarming smile to the people sitting there so they didn’t object or even comment, and she sat down with the four others, folding her hands on the table.</p><p>“I have to ask, because there’s still time to back out, but are you guys <em> sure </em>about this?”</p><p>“You think this is really that dangerous an idea?” Kylar spoke for the first time with a frown, leaning forward on the table. When his eyes instinctively flicked down to Lexica’s neckline, Tacita rolled her eyes with a non-jealous smile and nudged him.</p><p>Lexica didn’t seem to mind, throwing a small smile to Tacita before answering Kylar. “I do. Raven’s...pragmatic. If she thinks you’re any sort of threat for asking questions, you won’t be leaving.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment as they each thought over it, Tacita spoke up next, tilting her head curiously. “And Rowena is a dangerous topic?”</p><p>“I didn’t know her well, or much at all, but Raven paid her quite a bit more attention than she pays most of us. So I’m not sure what sort of territory that subject is in. Raven can be unpredictable, we all know so little about her that I wouldn’t be able to tell you how to conduct yourselves the most appealingly even if I tried my damndest.”</p><p>“And I suspect you’re normally pretty good at figuring that sort of thing out.” Chrystal raised an eyebrow, and Lexica shot her a friendly wink. The action bringing attention to her eyes, Chrystal frowned. “Wait...your eyes were blue last night.”</p><p>Sure enough, Lexica’s eyes were a deep green across the table, and Lexica gave a smile that was both shy and modest as she nodded, seeming to let out a soft breath. “Oh, I wear coloured contacts. I like picking and choosing depending on my mood.”</p><p>“Huh…” Chrystal sat back and crossed her arms, giving a small approving smile. “Fair enough. But back on topic, what exactly are we walking into?”</p><p> </p><p>While Chrystal went back to the main subject, Tacita instead frowned for a moment, her vision zoning in on Lexica properly for the first time since the girl had sat down. Scrutinising the girl with every single part of her Semblance, Tacita crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her fingers on her bicep.</p><p>Through the unique sort of vision given to her by her Semblance, Lexica certainly gave off strange signals. In that she barely gave off any at all. Smile and flirt all she wanted, the girl was a blank slate where it mattered.</p><p>Tacita raised an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing.</p><p> </p><p>In answer to Chrystal’s question, Lexica sighed and tapped her fingers together on the table, glancing around at each of them with a serious expression. “I’m taking you to our main camp, it’s about two hours away on foot. Normally she’d meet you somewhere more private, but things are busy at camp at the moment so she’s unable to be too far away.”</p><p>At the thought of being led right into the middle of the main bandit camp, Shina’s eyebrows went almost to his hairline, and he sat back as Chrystal sucked in an anxious breath, while both Kylar and Tacita were sitting deep in thought as they listened.</p><p>Shina let out a slow breath and crossed his arms over his chest, Lexica giving him a helpless smile. He nodded.</p><p>“Does she know who we are?”</p><p>“According to her face when I requested it, she has a general idea.”</p><p>“Great.” Pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes for a moment, Shina thought over it.</p><p> </p><p>He could both see and feel from the others that none of them had changed their minds. They were nothing if not disciplined, even Chrystal knew when it was time to focus on the mission and lock her fuzziness into its vault in her mind. They’d follow his decision.</p><p>They always did. So the final call was his.</p><p>Today might very well be the day they died.</p><p>But even as he thought of that fact, he didn’t feel any particular weight come with the thought. Every day since they’d left Patch could have been that day.<br/>And he refused to forget that the White Fang had apparently put out a hit against him, and <em> that </em>was going to start becoming more of a problem the more time they spent in large towns.</p><p>They were out in the wilds now. They were true Huntsmen. Every day could be their last.</p><p>And they had a mission. Not only that, but they had their own questions.</p><p>It was this, or aimlessness.</p><p>And some answers were worth dying for.</p><p> </p><p>So he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“When do we leave?”</p><p> </p><p>Thinning her lips as she saw the determination in Shina’s eyes when he opened them, Lexica tapped her fingers together again as she looked around and saw the determined expressions on the faces of each member of the team.</p><p>Well, she’d tried her best.</p><p>Letting out the breath she’d been holding as a sigh, she rose to her feet.</p><p>“If you’re ready, then right now.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As the group of five approached the walled campsite, Shina looked over to where Tacita was already focusing intently, mumbling under her breath as she counted the sheer amount of people they were going to be surrounded by. The number rose higher and higher, and her jaw clenched, her fingers drumming on her thigh in concern as she walked.</p><p>When she finished, she glanced over to where Shina was silently waiting for her assessment, and she slowly shook her head.</p><p>Thinning his lips, but none of his determination fading, Shina nodded in acknowledgement before looking ahead again as the closed gate came into view, guarded by four well-armed men on watch. As the group approached they all raised their weapons until they recognised Lexica, and they lowered them slowly, suspicious looks on each of their faces, but they still opened the gate for her as she got close with the others.</p><p>When one of the men, clearly the leader of the watch, stepped forward to speak with her, Lexica paused by him and they shared some quiet words as she reassured him, the man glancing past Lexica’s shoulder to stare at the others, and Chrystal met his stare and raised her eyebrow.</p><p>After a quiet talk for a minute, the man turned and quickly made his way inside of the gate to speak to someone, and Lexica looked over her shoulder at the others and gestured with her head for them to follow her yet again as she led them inside. When the gate closed behind them and they heard the plank go in place to lock it, each of them except for Shina tensed, Chrystal’s hands twitching in preparation to react to whatever might happen.</p><p>But Shina seemed relaxed and prepared, so they each refocused and calmed.</p><p> </p><p>The camp was massive, the tribe clearly being of dozens of people, each of them well-armed and well supplied. Even basic resources seemed plentiful, with things to spare that Tacita could see organised into piles in one corner of the camp. The tribe had been very busy and very successful, and Tacita suspected that the four of them had only seen a small sign of just how much damage the tribe had been doing.</p><p>Hostile eyes were all around them as they followed Lexica, and a small crowd was beginning to trail behind them out of curiosity as they were led towards the far side of the camp, where a much larger tent was erected and visible even from a decent distance. Tacita immediately focused her vision and hearing on it as they approached, and saw the masked woman emerge from it before the group even reached it, the gate guard having alerted her of their arrival.</p><p> </p><p>The woman waited patiently on the basic wooden platform the tent was constructed on, her head tilted in curiosity. Despite her best focus, Tacita couldn’t quite see the woman’s appearance behind her mask. The white material of it was too dense, and the inside too shadowed, but Tacita kept all of her focus on the woman all the same until Kylar nudged her.</p><p>Shina and Kylar focused on primary targets, Tacita and Chrystal focused on the more numerous smaller ones. That was always their tactic, no matter how curious Tacita might get about the big fish. But she relented, now wasn’t the time to fixate. She had to trust Shina and Kylar.</p><p>So she withdrew her vision from the woman and expanded it in a dome around them to keep an eye on the larger numbers of bandits who were giving them their sole attention, Chrystal at her side ready to move the moment she gave a warning.</p><p>Eventually they reached the small cleared space in front of the platform, and Lexica stopped, before turning to look at them and giving them a look and nod that was both helpless and also reassuring at the same time. Lexica turned to look up at her leader and gave a respectful nod, which the woman didn’t acknowledge, and Lexica stepped away to the edge of the clearing where Chrystal recognised Pearl, Hunter, and Redwood clearly waiting for her, and Lexica crossed her arms anxiously to watch even as Pearl gave her friend an inquiring look which Lexica ignored.</p><p> </p><p>“So, team SKTC from Beacon Academy. You’re a long way from home.”</p><p> </p><p>The woman on the platform spoke loudly and clearly, one hand resting on her hip while the other casually rested on the hilt of her sword, the stance both lethal and open at the same time.</p><p>Shina stepped forward and nodded. “You must be Raven. We’re here to talk.”</p><p>“I know, I’ve been told. Lexica used up quite a few favours with me to allow a team of Huntsmen into my camp.” Raven nodded, a suspicious tone entering her voice. “And what, exactly, are you here to talk about?”</p><p>“We’re looking for Rowena. We need to speak to her.”</p><p>At that, Raven went silent for a moment, and only Tacita and Lexica caught the hand Raven had on the hilt on her sword tightening only slightly for a moment before Raven responded.</p><p>“Unfortunately our Rowena hasn’t been seen for some time. You’ve come here for nothing.”</p><p>“You were apparently one of the last people to see her before she vanished, no ideas where she might have gone? It’s important.”</p><p>“I don’t doubt you think so. But even after she joined us we never knew her well, whatever important business you might have with her is none of our concern.” Raven took the hand from her hip to wave it dismissively.</p><p> </p><p>A new voice entered the conversation.</p><p>“You’re lying.”</p><p> </p><p>Raven paused as she was mid-way through turning away as Tacita spoke up, stepping forward next to Shina. Tacita’s hand was nervously down near where her bow was clipped onto her belt, and it was obvious Raven had amusedly noticed.</p><p>“And what makes you think that, girl?”</p><p>Tacita’s eyes flicked to the mantle of feathers that Raven wore as part of her armour, and she slowly reached down into her bag. The action caused plenty of the people nearby to tighten their hands on their weapons in hostile caution, and Kylar responded by glaring around at each of them with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>Slow enough that it hopefully wouldn’t startle anybody, Tacita pulled out the larger of the feathers she’d taken from Rowena’s house.</p><p>“You were at her house the day she vanished.”</p><p> </p><p>Chuckling in a mixture of approval and amusement, they could hear the cold smile behind the mask as Raven replied. “You’ve each been busy. Alright, I recruited her, yes. What business do you have with her that inspired this level of effort? You were very brave to come here.”</p><p>Shina glanced over to Tacita with a frown, and she gave him a small but fierce nod, her eyes sharp as she looked down at the feather and then back to Raven. Letting out a breath, Shina looked back up at Raven.</p><p>“We were sent to look for her. By Ozpin.”</p><p> </p><p>At the mention of Ozpin, a ripple of tension went through the crowd surrounding them, and there was enough tightening of grips on weapons that Chrystal shot a glare to the closest person and her own hand went to one of her pistols, but she didn’t draw it from its holster entirely, merely doing it to make a point as she glared daggers into the closest people.</p><p>“Of <em> course </em>you were.”</p><p>Raven’s voice was pitying, and almost….disappointed. The grip she had on the hilt of her sword relaxed again, as if she’d decided they either weren’t a threat or weren’t interesting.</p><p>“I understand. You’re young, ambitious. Clearly brave and clever. So it’s tempting to carry on a legacy and obey the wishes of our heroes. But professor Ozpin is dead. And even if he wasn’t, Rowena would owe him nothing, and I recommend you feel the same.”</p><p> </p><p>Unable to keep his mouth shut, Kylar stepped forward as well, leaving just Chrystal lingering behind and keeping her eyes on everyone around them.</p><p>Kylar looked up at Raven with a determined expression.</p><p>“Even if Ozpin is dead, Rowena owes a duty to Haven. To the <em> people </em>. Just like we do. Ozpin might have put the idea in our minds, but...we got here for ourselves.”</p><p>Raven was quiet for a few moments as she regarded Kylar, before her fingers drummed on her hip in frustration and amusement at the same time. There was almost a pitying disregard in her voice.</p><p>“Oh I place it now. You look <em> so </em>much like Logan. But you definitely sound like Tesse. It’s been a while since a Goroesi has stood in front of me spouting heroics.” Shaking her head, Raven gestured dismissively with the hand from her hip.</p><p>When Kylar went to open his mouth again, his eyes sparking with a new aggressive curiosity, Shina put his hand on his chest to silence him and gave him a stern look. Almost looking as if he wanted to argue for a moment, Kylar huffed and looked away, stepping back, with Tacita following, leaving just Shina forward and closer to the platform.</p><p>“I find theatrics boring. Let’s just be blunt.” Shina’s voice was dead, his battle mask firmly in place behind his eyes to hide his agitation. “You don’t know where Rowena is?”</p><p>“The four of you have been under the presumption that I owe you any sort of answers. I don’t. Nobody does. The Goroesi boy’s parents learned that the hard way.”</p><p>“Then enough about Rowena. What about <em> my </em>father?”</p><p>“More assumptions-”</p><p>“If you knew Kylar’s parents and knew Rowena lived in Ywitawa, then I’m willing to bet you knew <em> my </em> father too, since apparently he was <em> fucking </em>wrapped up in this too.”</p><p>“Who-”</p><p>“Study my face, the eyes should help it click.”</p><p> </p><p>As Shina’s anger and frustration grew and he kept interrupting Raven, the crowd surrounding the confrontation were growing more and more hostile themselves, and the rest of SKTC found themselves putting their hands on their weapons. As Raven’s grip tightened on her blade yet again, Tacita couldn’t resist the urge to click her bow into its extended form, and her quiver hummed to life.</p><p>The sudden action caused two of the men nearby to step forward, only to find one of Chrystal’s pistols pointed right at them.</p><p>When Raven spoke next, it was punctuated by the near silent click of her sheath as her blade slid out less than an inch. Her voice carried a tone that they hadn’t heard from her so far, of an almost dark hostility, and it put a lump of anxiety in each of their throats.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Brex.”  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The name of Shina’s father slipped out of her mouth like poison, and just from the slightest shift of posture Shina could <em> feel </em>her eyes sharpening on him, the anxiety that the action caused in his gut had his foot slide back almost into a ready stance and his hand twitch upwards slightly.</p><p>Seeing this, a man further back in the crowd clicked off the safety of a large rifle in his hands, doing so as quietly as possible so as not to be noticed, only to blink when Tacita drew an arrow to point at him in the one smooth moment faster than most people could blink, her eyes focused in a glare.</p><p>As the tension in the clearing reached a breaking point, Raven seemed to be scrutinising Shina with an almost predatory stance that vibrated with hostility, before she gracefully hopped down from the wooden platform, only half a dozen paces from him. Almost dead even with Shina in height, they were able to stare at each other even through her mask, with red eyes glaring into gold, but even under the sheer weight of Raven’s presence Shina didn’t flinch backwards any further.</p><p>“So Brex managed to have a brat as well. Would never have expected that, after the state I last saw him in. I’d tell your friends to stand down, boy.”</p><p>“My <em> name </em>is Shina. And I doubt they’d relax even if I asked.”</p><p>“Then you’ve got no place as their leader. Leaders should be obeyed, just as my people will obey if I tell them you aren’t leaving this camp alive.”</p><p>“And is misplacing your big gun a sign of good authority on your part?”</p><p>Raven gave a cold laugh, shaking her head in amusement behind her mask. “You’ve got your father’s temper and confidence, I’ll grant you that.”</p><p> </p><p>Narrowing his eyes, Shina’s hand twitched again as he felt his eyes pulse and his skin give the first sign of paling, the First Cut straining against his ability to hold it as that one sore spot was pressed into. At the sight, Raven’s grip on her sword tightened, and her eyes widened in recognition behind her mask where Shina couldn’t see.</p><p>As Shina’s appearance visibly changed, something obviously happening that had their leader tense and hostile, the tension in the camp finally snapped, and the first members of the crowd began to move in response to what was clearly some sort of threat against their leader.</p><p>Instantly at the first sign of trouble, Shina’s hand flew up to the hilt of his sword as he rapidly looked over at where the people were moving, and as the first person reached him his blade was instantly out of its sheath and swinging down, only to be caught on a katana of pure red dust and held still.</p><p> </p><p>At the same moment Raven blocked his strike with her own, her stare fixed onto his face, specifically his eyes, as if waiting for something, a pulse of energy went through the camp.</p><p>With a wave of weight and exhaustion going through the crowd, action and hostility grinding to a halt as Lexica’s hand tightened on her undrawn whip as she focused. Any desire for violence seeped out of everyone in the clearing, Chrystal once again nearly dropping to her knees under the pressure of it, her blade and pistol dropping from her hands. It wasn’t enough to drive anyone to collapse, or cause any true emptiness. It simply drove them to a brief drained standstill.</p><p>Except for Raven and Shina.</p><p>Still holding their blades together in a clash, though neither of them were exerting any force, their swords simply pressed against each other, Raven’s eyes were fixed on Shina’s face as she watched for any signs of the next cut opening. But Shina seemed to have control, and she confidently exerted enough weight with her blade to flick his blade down by his side, lowering her own as well but keeping it up enough she could ready it in a split-second.</p><p>Meanwhile Shina could feel the weight around the clearing, but it wasn’t driving him to a standstill or to collapse like it was for plenty of the others. Instead he could feel it <em> pressing </em>against the Cut, like a tide of water trying to break through a bramble of vines and weeds and failing to do more than trickle through like a stream instead of a flood.</p><p>Raven stepped forward calmly until she was in Shina’s personal space, so she could speak without anyone else overhearing.</p><p>“Tell me, Shina. How many Cuts can you open?”</p><p>Shina’s eyes widened, and he blinked. “Wait, you know what they-”</p><p>“I know what they are. I knew your father, remember?”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking, Shina’s mouth fell open in confusion, and it was enough that the first Cut slid closed as he calmed down. Immediately the weight from Lexica’s Semblance began to press down on him, and Raven held up a hand behind herself for Lexica to release it, which she immediately did, with energy returning to the crowd. But the hostility had had its legs effectively swept out from underneath it, and so now the air was purely filled with cautious curiosity as they watched their leader scrutinise her challenger.</p><p>Staring into Shina’s confused eyes for a few moments, Raven narrowed her own behind her mask.</p><p>“Nobody’s told you even <em> that </em>...” Drumming her fingers on the hilt of her blade, Raven tutted, not totally surprised at the casual neglect of Ozpin and the others.</p><p>She wasn’t surprised at how little Ozpin, the Goroesi’s, and even her brother, had clearly told the four children they’d sent on their suicide mission. But not telling <em> Shina </em> certain things? <br/>That wasn’t just neglect. That was bordering on <em> stupid </em>.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Oh Ozpin…you damned fool.’ </em>
</p><p>But there was an opportunity in this, so she narrowed her eyes further, but now in curiosity as she asked again.</p><p>“Answer me. How many?”</p><p>“Five.”</p><p>“Out of?”</p><p>Frowning at the tone in her voice, Shina tilted his head even as he answered. “...twelve.”</p><p>Raven’s eyes went from narrow to wide, and she straightened up, looking Shina up and down in scrutiny. The boy had been quick, and she had felt the strength of his swing, and seen the accuracy of it.</p><p>And if he had <em> twelve </em>of them…</p><p>An intrigued and curious chuckle left Raven’s throat as she nodded to him.</p><p>“Alright... Let’s talk.”</p><p>Spinning on her heel and sliding her blade back into its sheath in the same movement, Raven casually hopped back up onto the platform, before looking over her shoulder where Shina was watching her suspiciously as his friends straightened and were looking to him in confusion.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on then, you four. Better a conversation, than a Kamisari raging through my camp, don’t you think?”</p><p> </p><p>As Raven disappeared into her tent without another word, Chrystal noting as Vernal followed her in, the four of them turned to each other, each of them thankful that things had been stopped before a shot had been fired. If one had been, there was every chance they wouldn’t be alive right now.</p><p>They were good at being outnumbered, but this camp was clearly filled with more threats than they’d considered.</p><p>Without a word, Shina nodded at them before turning to head towards the tent, and the other three followed, Chrystal sliding her hands into her pockets and nodding in thanks to Lexica as she passed by.</p><p>But Lexica only had eyes for Shina, a curious frown on her face.</p><p> </p><p>The pair met eyes as he walked past her, and while neither of them changed expression their stare still lingered until Shina had to hop up onto the platform, looking forwards again to step into the tent and whatever was to come next.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The interior of the tent was surprisingly cosy, themed with the same dark red as Raven’s armour, with mismatched furnishings clearly each grabbed during raids that all suited each other in the decor.</p><p>Chrystal looked around in curiosity as she entered, locking eyes with Vernal as the other girl stood a distance away with her arms crossed. When they met eyes, Vernal raised an eyebrow in almost aggressive curiosity, and Chrystal merely shrugged in response, getting a sharp smirk from the other girl.</p><p> </p><p>While the four of them looked around, Raven was waiting patiently, hand still resting on the hilt of her sword as she watched how each of them were when they were away from crowds and were able to conduct themselves more quietly. Each of them were certainly interesting in their own way, with the Goroesi boy being almost a mirror of both of his parents, and it almost had Raven sneer behind her mask.</p><p>The archer was interesting, her head only moving in slight adjustments as she looked around, and Raven could see the glow in the girl’s eyes of her Semblance in use, clearly of a sensory type. Archers were rare, and they didn’t just require a certain level of skill, they required a certain <em> temperament </em> to use. So seeing one again was <em> very </em>interesting.</p><p>Meanwhile the other girl was also interesting. Despite playfully and casually having her hands in her pockets, Raven could feel the lethal sharpness radiating off the girl. Raven had been around all manner of Huntsmen, criminals, and other such fighters her entire life. She knew a wild card when she saw one, and she was looking at one.</p><p> </p><p>As for the Kamisari boy…</p><p>Well…</p><p>That was for later.</p><p> </p><p>Gesturing to a low table and a number of cushions, Raven unbuckled her weapon harness to lay her sheathed blade aside, resting it on a countertop, before sinking onto one of the cushions herself on the other side of the table.</p><p>“Take a seat. Get comfortable. I suspect we’ll be here a while.”</p><p>With how relaxed Raven’s demeanor was, the four of them glanced at each other curiously, before Chrystal simply shrugged and plopped down onto one of the cushions casually, crossing her legs underneath herself. Behind her mask, the corner of Raven’s mouth ticked up for a brief moment.</p><p>Even as Kylar and Tacita followed her example, Shina paused a few moments longer as he regarded the room, his eyes lingering on where Vernal was waiting nearby and very clearly still armed, her large chakrams on her belt.</p><p>“No need to be concerned about Vernal, she’ll be leaving us once we’re all settled in.” Raven waved a hand dismissively, and Shina clicked his tongue for a moment before carefully unbuckling his sheath from his back and placing it down next to the cushion he sat down in.</p><p>“Excellent. Vernal, some tea please. This is going to be quite the talk.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.” Nodding obediently, but her voice cautious, Vernal got to work behind them. Even though she was facing Raven physically, Tacita was watching Vernal intently for any sign of trouble.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, Raven reached up to her mask and pulled it off, rolling her neck as the weight was removed. “First thing’s first, might as well get comfortable myself.”</p><p> </p><p>As her appearance was revealed, all four of them either blinked or sat back as the near mirror-image of Yang was revealed, Raven’s red eyes opening and flicking around at each of their expressions to see what effect it had. It was a safe assumption on her part that they’d know her daughter at least in passing, but while the simple shock on three of the teenager’s faces was what she expected, she wasn’t expecting to see growing outrage on the face of the wild card.</p><p>“You…” Chrystal blinked, sitting up straight again and resting her hands in her lap, her eyes widening as her jaw clenched. Yang’s mother. <em> Yang’s mother. </em>“You’re her. You’re…”</p><p>“Yes. Formal introductions. I’m Raven. Raven Branwen. Though I suspect that’s not the detail you’d each personally consider the most important one.” A small amused smile touched her face as three of the teens looked between themselves in shock, meanwhile Chrystal was starting to breathe quickly and heavily. Raven raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“So, I gather <em> you </em>know my daughter.”</p><p>Clenching her fists tightly, Chrystal’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “So this is where you’ve been, all these years?”</p><p>“Yang’s told you what she knows of the story, then.”</p><p>“She’s told me enough. Though she was never <em> sober </em>when talking about it.” Chrystal’s voice came out in an angry growl, pieces clicking into place. But more pieces were clicking into place in Kylar’s head than in hers.</p><p> </p><p>So the boy jolted up with a blink. “Wait a minute. That’s how you know. If you’re Raven <em> Branwen </em>, that means you’re…”</p><p>Pausing before he finished the thought, Kylar’s own eyes sharpened as his mind clicked pieces together, and Raven watched him in patient amusement.</p><p>“Team STRQ. You’re Qrow’s sister. That’s how you know my parents. That’s how you know Rowena is a Maiden. And if she knew you, that’s how you convinced her to join you. That’s how you know Shina’s father. That’s how you just <em> KNOW. </em>” Kylar’s voice rose towards the end in frustration, and he ran his hands over his face and through his hair.</p><p>“Good. <em> There’s </em>your father in you. So, you were sent out here even without knowing that you might run into me. With how little you’re all aware of, I’d almost get the suspicion they wanted you to fail out here.” Raven chuckled in cold amusement as her own thoughts were confirmed, before accepting a cup of tea from Vernal. “Thank you Vernal. Leave us please.”</p><p>Placing the pot of tea and cups on the small table, Vernal nodded to Raven and left, but not before her eyes met Chrystal’s and she gave her another look of scrutiny, which Chrystal was just worked up enough to return, raising her eyebrow until Vernal simply smirked again and left the tent.</p><p>“What do you mean by how little we’re aware of?” Shina spoke up cautiously, pouring himself some tea and adding enough sugar to it Raven had to hide a small smile behind her own cup. She placed her cup down on its saucer and crossed her arms.</p><p>“What have you been told?”</p><p>“We know about the Maidens, the Relics, and that the Grimm have a leader called Salem.” Shina counted off his fingers, a cold edge to his voice that hadn’t left the entire time they’d been in the camp. “We know the current Fall Maiden stole her powers from the previous one, Amber, who I’m assuming you knew as well, and the new Maiden works for Salem.”</p><p>Raising an eyebrow, Raven tilted her head as she listened, watching the coldness in Shina’s eyes and hearing it in his voice. She nodded in thought as he finished.</p><p>“Just enough that you’d do what they asked. Which was?”</p><p> </p><p>The four of them glanced at each other, debating about how much to say, but when Shina took in a breath and let it out slowly they knew he’d made the decision on his own.</p><p> </p><p>“To find the Spring Maiden, Rowena. She went missing, we were sent to find her, and hopefully convince her to return to Haven to protect the vault and the relic.”</p><p>“I see…” Raven uncrossed her arms to take another sip of her tea to buy herself a moment to study the teens and think. She gave a dismissive sigh as she placed her cup back down. “Well that’s just textbook Ozpin. How early on did he have that particular plan in mind for you?”</p><p>It surprised all of them when it was Tacita who sighed, looking down at her own tea. She’d had her suspicions for a while, if she was honest with herself she’d had her suspicions ever since Ozpin had sent them on the recon mission in Mountain Glenn.</p><p>“A while. If I think about it, probably a few months before his death.”</p><p>“It was almost certainly longer, kid.” Raven shrugged, but her eyes were confident and knowing, and it had Tacita thin her lips. “He starts his moves early. Trust me, I know. He knew exactly what he wanted from my team and I from the moment we were teamed up.”</p><p>She flicked her eyes to Kylar. “And he did it with your parents too. Kids, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted you four teamed up together from the moment you each applied to the Academy.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, the partner exercise is in the Emerald Forest, he wouldn’t be able to influence who ended up where, and near who.” Kylar shook his head, finishing his tea quickly and placing the empty cup down, but Raven simply raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“And how do you get into the Forest for initiation?”</p><p>“The launch pads, of course.”</p><p>“And who picked which launch pad each of you would be launched from, and how far each one fired each of you?”</p><p> </p><p>Opening and closing his mouth wordlessly, Kylar’s breath caught in his throat at the look Raven was giving him as she spoke, the woman giving him an expression that was clearly telling him the answer was obvious if he thought about it.</p><p> </p><p>“Think about other teams and partnerships in your year. How convenient a lot of them ended up being. How many happy coincidences happened in that initiation?” Raven poured herself another cup as she spoke in the same casual tone she’d used the entire conversation. </p><p>But without even looking up at the teens she knew her point was made, and they were all thinking over it.</p><p> </p><p>Team JNPR. The best student in the year partnered with the worst, to be able to support him. The two orphans who only knew each other just <em> happened </em>to find each other.</p><p>Team BRGT. Three with a similar type of elemental Semblance, complimenting each other perfectly, with the fourth able to mimic the Semblances of others to cover blind spots.</p><p>And finally, team SKTC themselves. Two pairs of people who had known each other for years. A sensory-Semblance archer, the rogue with flawless agility, and finally a Goroesi and a Kamisari, who’s parents had worked together in Ozpin’s inner circle. A team perfectly suited for recon and search missions. Now they were on the recon and search mission only those let in on the secret could have gone on.</p><p> </p><p>While Kylar, Tacita and Shina were deeply off in thought, each of them feeling different things about it, Chrystal only had eyes for Raven, her eyes filled with hostility and disgust. It was enough that Raven raised her eyebrows.</p><p>“You don’t seem particularly surprised, girl.”</p><p>“Chrystal. And it’s not that I’m not surprised, I just don’t care.”</p><p>“Then why the face, <em> Chrystal? </em>”</p><p>“Yang.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course.” Raven sighed, placing her tea down on the table. “Say your piece, and we can move on.”</p><p>“Did you know Beacon was going to fall?”</p><p>“Everyone did. I was just the only one not in denial.”</p><p>“Then why weren’t you there? If not for Ozpin and the others, because sure, fuck em, but why not for Yang?” Chrystal’s voice filled with anger, and her face sharpened into a snarl.</p><p>Pondering it for only a short moment, Raven raised an eyebrow. “It was the battle she chose when she became a Huntsman. It was the duty she chose, and not my place to deny her of it.”</p><p>“<b><em>FUCK</em></b> you!” Chrystal snarled, her cup shattering in her hands, the volume loud enough to shock the other three out of their thoughts. “She <em>KILLED </em>people that night! And she was beaten. <em>Cut down.</em> Don’t you care?”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment as Chrystal glared at her in anger, Raven folded her hands on her lap and fixed her with a firm look. “I’m aware of what happened. It was her battle. The one she chose. The one you <em> all </em>chose. I warned Ozpin that Beacon would fall, I even told him how. I told Ozpin, my brother, Logan, Tesse, Yang’s father. None listened, and because of that she was there. You all were.”</p><p>“How did <em> you </em>know Beacon would fall?” Shina spoke up before Chrystal could shout again, cutting her off, and when she glared at him he gave her a reassuring enough look that she calmed enough to huff and look away.</p><p>Humming in thought of how to answer, her attention switching entirely to Shina, Raven thinned her lips. “The world is full of far darker things than what you’ve been told. Salem is not the only darkness out there, though she is the smartest and most aggressive. Just like my brother, it was my job to travel and scout. During those days, I saw things. I began to understand this game isn’t the one Ozpin tells everyone it is.”</p><p>Readjusting and resting her hands on the low table, folding them together, Raven continued with a dark and shadowed look in her eyes. “He told us enough to scare us, but not so much we wouldn’t be motivated to help. Each team he brought into the secret were told different details of the truth to suit them for the purpose that he picked for them. In my time traveling around and assisting some of the other teams, and hearing the details <em> they </em> were told, I got a better picture than most. Salem would want a relic, a Maiden, and Ozpin out of the way in one swoop. Beacon was the obvious choice, and she would throw <em> everything </em>she could get at it.”</p><p>Pausing in her explanation, Raven’s eyes went distant as she was lost in a memory that caused the shadows in her eyes to darken even further, and she schooled her face before glancing to Kylar directly.</p><p>“And then team BLAK were attacked. When that happened, it was obvious she’d started recruiting and decided to start picking off Ozpin’s allies. The timer was set.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylar’s eyes widened as his breath caught in his throat, his heart stopping for a few moments. Slumping back slightly, he didn’t even notice as the other three members of his team looked at him in confusion and concern.</p><p>In response to his shock, Raven raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “They really didn’t tell you kids anything at all, didn’t they. Even your own parents have kept you in the dark, despite clearly raising you to be let in on the secret too.”</p><p>“That’s not true, they didn’t want me involved. They tried to talk us out of it.” Recovering from his shock, Kylar shook his head.</p><p>But before Raven could reply, Tacita spoke up.</p><p>“...then what about the book, Kylar?”</p><p>Going silent, Kylar looked over at Tacita for a moment, before down at his lap, his mind starting to race and pick things apart. Raven tilted her head and crossed her arms in curiosity, though she was almost certain she knew what they were talking about.</p><p>“Book?”</p><p> </p><p>Glancing over at Kylar to see if he’d stop her, when he didn’t move or react Tacita opened her bag and pulled out the sealed box, holding it in her hands for a moment in view of Raven, who frowned.</p><p>“Interesting. May I see?”</p><p>Wordlessly, Tacita passed it over, Raven taking it curiously to study it between her hands, staring at it curiously as she noticed there was seemingly no lock or way to open it. Regarding it for a few moments, she sighed.</p><p>“Logan. Alright, how was it sealed?”</p><p>“I’ll tell you, if you answer a question of my own.” Tacita raised her own eyebrow, a lucidity coming to her stare that hadn’t been there until now, and it had Raven pause.</p><p>“Ask away.”</p><p> </p><p>Opening her bag again, Tacita once again retrieved the feather and held it up in her fingers, giving Raven a pinning look that was almost unusual on her face due to how rare such an expression was for her.</p><p>“How can you turn into a raven?”</p><p> </p><p>There was complete silence in the tent for a few moments as the other three looked between Tacita and Raven, who were staring at each other intently, Tacita’s stare practically pinning Raven down as Raven’s was a stare of fascination. The woman smiled in approval.</p><p>“I was <em> wondering </em>what it was about you that was picked. Now I see. Clever girl.” Nodding to Tacita, Raven rested her hands on her knees and straightened slightly. “It was something Ozpin did to my brother and I, in order to increase our ability to aid him in our missions.”</p><p>“Something <em> Ozpin </em>did?” Shina frowned, and Raven nodded deeply just the once in confirmation, before her smile turned judgemental and mock-sympathetic.</p><p>“Again more things you weren’t told. The Maidens and Salem aren’t the only wielders of magic in the world, Ozpin has a fair bit of his own.”</p><p>“And he used it to...<em> turn </em> you and your brother Qrow into <em> birds </em>?” Chrystal raised an eyebrow sarcastically, crossing her arms over her chest. </p><p>Raven actively chuckled and nodded. “Quite the use for it, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Tacita was frowning, and she held up a hand, halting the conversation and getting Raven’s attention.</p><p>“...you just said <em> ‘has’ </em> . That Ozpin <em> ‘has’ </em>magic.”</p><p>“Yes I did, didn’t I.” Raven raised her eyebrows at the girl, waiting a handful of moments for the four of them to look between each other, before continuing. “Ozpin will return. He always does. When killed, he reincarnates, his soul moving to another body.”</p><p>“Okay no. Nope. I have a limit and we have reached it.” Chrystal rolled her eyes immediately, the others agreeing with her position silently, meanwhile Raven simply held a confident and certain enough look on the girl that Chrystal’s baffled rejection began to melt, and her eyes widened. “...you’re serious.”</p><p>“It’s the core ability of his magic.” Raven nodded again, glancing in disappointment at the now cold pot of tea, before Kylar’s voice got her attention.</p><p> </p><p>“I <em> hate </em> magic. I hate magic <em> so much </em>.” Kylar practically hissed through his teeth as he pushed himself to his feet and stood, beginning a quick pacing back and forth across the tent as his mind put pieces together and then discarded them just as quickly, mumbling to himself.</p><p> </p><p>Pausing in his pacing, Kylar squeezed his eyes shut to rub them, sighing in irritation as his Semblance responded to his agitation and began to awaken his special sight.</p><p> </p><p>The others watched him patiently for a few moments until it became obvious that he’d be thinking for a while, but they soon turned back to all facing each other.</p><p>Raven gave them all an amused small smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Any other questions?”</p><p>“A thousand, but…” Shina sighed, closing his eyes for a moment to center himself. “Instead of spending them all on personal stuff, we do have a mission. Is Rowena really missing?”</p><p>Raven sat back and crossed her arms.</p><p>She was going to have to play this one very carefully, Shina might have Brex’s temper but he was clearly far smarter and sharper, and the other three had proven themselves in the conversation to be just as clever and capable. Any lie she told would turn everything she was trying to do against her.<br/>Would weaken the legitimacy of everything she’d already told them.</p><p>“In truth? Rowena died some time ago.”</p><p>Deflating at the news, though he had expected that outcome, Shina closed his eyes in defeat and nodded, meanwhile Tacita had closed her eyes as if meditating in her own thoughts, while Chrystal snarled in frustration.</p><p>Nodding again, Shina opened his eyes. “The Maiden is still someone in your camp, at least. We’ve seen the recent destruction to some of the villages.”</p><p>“She is.” Raven nodded in confirmation, her expression schooled. “My second-in-command Vernal, who you met earlier.”</p><p> </p><p>“Try again.”</p><p> </p><p>The four of them looked up in surprise and over at Kylar, who was staring at Raven with sharp eyes that were visibly shimmering with his aura and Semblance. The expression on his face was fierce, and the words had come out utterly hostile and frustrated.</p><p>In his Semblance sight, Raven glowed like a <em> sun </em>, even just sitting and talking as she was.</p><p>She glowed with <em> magic </em>.</p><p>The magic of a Maiden.</p><p> </p><p>At the look in Kylar’s eyes, Tacita’s own eyes widened in realisation first and she whipped her head back around to look at Raven, who was staring up at Kylar with a defensive but also <em> irritated </em>expression, drumming her fingers being her only movements.</p><p>“I managed almost two decades without the interference of a Goroesi. I suppose the streak was bound to end.”</p><p>Shina looked back to Raven, and his expression hardened into ice-cold steel. Folding his own hands in his lap, he narrowed his eyes. “I see.”</p><p>Raven and Kylar continued their staring match for quite a few silent moments before Kylar took a calming breath and let it out slowly, closing his eyes to turn his sight back to normal and focus himself.</p><p>“The box opens in response to either a Goroesi Semblance, or a Maiden’s powers.”</p><p> </p><p>At the fact Kylar had just straight-up told Raven the trick to unlocking the book, Chrystal gave him a look as if he was insane. “<em> WHY </em>tell her?? She’s been doing nothing but fucking with us this whole time!”</p><p>“No, she hasn’t. That’s her first full lie.” Kylar shook his head, slowly returning to his cushion and sinking down into it, crossing his arms. “Even if she has been, she can tell us more about the book than we could find out on our own.”</p><p>Raising her eyebrow, Raven gave a small smile with the corner of her mouth. “Well now that you’re satisfied with yourself, shall I do it? Or you?”</p><p>“I doubt you get to use your powers much, keeping them hidden, so feel free.” Kylar snarked as he glared at her cold smug smile again, and she simply scoffed in amusement.</p><p> </p><p>It took barely a flicker, the flames in her eyes barely appearing even for a moment, before the box clicked open in her hands. She opened it carefully, tilting her head in curiosity at the bundle inside, before lifting it out gently and placing it on the table, putting the box to the side. Unwrapping the cloth, when the cover was revealed she had to resist the urge to suck in a breath.</p><p>She didn’t even need to open the cover to the title page to recognise it.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Kaskol’s Compendium…’ </em>
</p><p>Sometimes when a suspicion is confirmed, you don’t want it to be.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes for a moment to take a deeper breath than usual and let it out, Raven opened her eyes again as she ran her fingers softly over the cover of the book. She looked up and around at the teenagers across from her.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did you get this?”</p><p>“...Rowena had it.” Kylar’s voice was once again neutral, the almost <em> concerned </em>expression in Raven’s eyes enough to have his focus. Raven raised her eyebrows, before chuckling in astonishment.</p><p>“And she never gave it to Ozpin? That girl, I swear…” Chuckling again almost fondly, Raven nodded to her thoughts. “How much of it have you read?”</p><p>“Nothing. We haven’t had the time, we were <em> a little busy. </em>” Shina raised an eyebrow as he sarcastically hissed out the last words, and Raven hid another small smile of amusement, but she nodded all the same.</p><p>“Then start reading it. Every page. It’ll tell you everything Ozpin and the others never told you, in more detail than I could manage. And I’m willing to bet there are full chapters in there of things that not even I ever found out.” Raven ran her finger along the mask emblem on the cover again, her eyes briefly going far away into a long-ago memory, but she quickly came back. “There are dark places in the world that team BLLD found themselves in that none of the rest of us would have been willing to follow. If Kaskol kept this completely up to date until the day she died, I can’t imagine what’s inside the last handful of chapters.”</p><p>“What <em> do </em> you know about team BLLD? And my <em> father? </em> And <em> all </em>of it?” Shina’s voice rose in desperate curiosity with each question, and Raven looked from the book to him, a composed expression on her face but a shadow in her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Staring at him for a long moment that stretched on, Raven tapped her fingers on the book as she came to a decision.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll tell you everything I remember about team BLLD and your father, and this book, on two conditions.”</p><p>Shina sat up straighter. “Name them.”</p><p>“First condition; you and I have that talk <em> alone </em>. The three of them leave, and the archer goes far enough away her Semblance won’t let her overhear.”</p><p> </p><p>As the others all glanced around at each other, the three others looking to Shina to silently ask what he wanted them to do, he only hesitated for a handful of moments before nodding, a pleading look in his eyes. When each of them nodded, he focused his eyes specifically on Tacita, who nodded slightly firmer after a moment, agreeing to the second part of the condition.</p><p>She didn’t like it, but she’d do it.</p><p>Raven nodded. “Good. My people will keep them away in the meantime, to ensure it. Second condition…”</p><p>Surprising the four of them, Raven lifted up the book and offered it over to them directly from her hand, a stern expression on her face that brooked no argument.</p><p>“Second condition is you forget <em> everything </em> they told you. Every slimy and contradictory way they worded it. And once you’ve done that, you start to read this book immediately. Right from the beginning. And you don’t stop until you understand the true weight of what Ozpin and the others are <em> desperately </em>going to want to get you deeper and deeper involved in.”</p><p> </p><p>The four of them stared down at the book in Raven’s extended hand, the voice she’d spoken in making it very clear of her certainty of its importance. Each of them glanced up at Raven, and then at each other, and then back down at the book.</p><p>Eventually, slowly, Tacita reached out and took the book from her, immediately hugging it close to her chest, and nodding.</p><p>“I’ll get started right away.”</p><p>“Not me?” Kylar raised his eyebrows, but Tacita shook her head sadly.</p><p>“You’ve got conflicted interest. Bias because of your parents.”</p><p>Opening his mouth to argue, he stopped when Tacita simply raised her eyebrow at him, and he sighed, nodding in understanding and agreement but not being <em> at all </em>happy about it.</p><p>“Good.” Raven nodded at Tacita in approval. “What was your name again, girl?”</p><p>“Tacita. Everweb.” Tacita rose to her feet, still holding the book to her chest as she slung her quiver back on and clipped her bow to her belt. “I’ll be outside. Far away, apparently.”</p><p>Giving one last look of concern but trust to Shina, Tacita made her way out of the tent, waiting a moment as Kylar stood to follow, the boy shooting a final glare to Raven as he did so. Chrystal hesitated a few moments longer than the others, looking at Shina in anxious concern, and she only moved when he reached over to squeeze her hand reassuringly.</p><p>“I’ll be okay. You can stay close enough to get inside the moment you hear anything.”</p><p>Chrystal nodded, and rose to her feet, Raven noting the sheer ease and elegance of the movement. Giving Raven a look of clear warning, Chrystal grabbed her weapon harness and made her way outside, leaving just Raven and Shina sitting across from each other.</p><p> </p><p>The two sat in silence for a few moments, before Raven crossed her arms. “So, where would you like to start?”</p><p> </p><p>Sitting in thought for a moment, a frown grew over Shina’s face as he closed his eyes and took a breath, preparing himself, before straightening.</p><p>“Do you really know what happened to my father’s team?”</p><p>“...I do.” Raven tapped her hands together. While she did seem willing to answer, there was a persistent shadow in her eyes as she thought over it. “I was there when it all happened.”</p><p>“Then...why did you never come see my dad afterwards?” Shina frowned deeper, gesturing helplessly in thought. “The way he’s ended up...he probably could have used a friend, or even just <em> someone. </em>”</p><p>“Oh I doubt Brex would ever want to see me again.”</p><p>“Why? What <em><strong>happened</strong> </em>already??” Shina’s voice sharpened, especially in response to the weight growing on Raven’s face that the woman was hiding rather well.</p><p> </p><p>“Well…” Sighing, her face taking on its normal composure, Raven raised an eyebrow. “I did break his back, after all.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. The Cost Of Control</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Raven and Shina finally have the chance to talk in private, and the truth about the Kamisari family and the fate of Team BLLD is revealed.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Shina sat staring at Raven in complete silence, not a single muscle twitching, the only sign he was even alive was the gentle pulsing in the gold of his eyes. Waiting patiently for the boy to process, Raven stood to take the tea back to the fire to make a fresh pot, predicting they would both likely appreciate it through this conversation.</p><p>It had been a long time since any of these old ghosts had come crawling and scratching at the fabric of her tent, she’d left that life behind for a reason, left that <em> world </em>behind to fend for itself while she returned to a life that made sense and that could actually be fought and survived.</p><p>But there was no getting away from it forever. Once the war against the darkness got a single scratch on you, you belonged to it forever. The scar would linger, and sting in the most unpredictable of moments.</p><p>The fall of Beacon should have been a sign that a ripple from it would guide a ghost to her.</p><p> </p><p>She just could never have expected it to be <em> this </em>ghost.</p><p> </p><p>The boy didn’t look much like his father at all, apart from the signature golden eyes and blonde hair. The rest of his appearance must be his mother, whoever the unfortunate woman was who decided to fall in love with a man like Brex Kamisari.</p><p>Sighing to herself, she took the opportunity of being behind Shina’s back and facing away from him to close her eyes for a moment and focus herself.</p><p>That particular thought wasn’t fair. And wouldn’t be any good in the conversation to come.</p><p> </p><p>Returning with the fresh pot of tea and placing the tray back down onto the table, she noted that Shina had clearly returned to his thoughts and had been waiting for her before he spoke, staring at her with sharp eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re the one who crippled my father. And you’re just <em> telling </em>me this?”</p><p>“For as little as it might be worth, it wasn’t actually my intention to cripple him. Merely to stop him.” Raven poured herself a fresh cup, placing the teapot down and quickly taking a sip, both for the refreshment but also to buy herself a moment to keep thinking. “How much do you know about team BLLD?”</p><p>“Nothing. I know my father led it, and I know about the existence of the book, but only since we found it. That’s it.” Shina only broke off his stare at her to pour himself a cup as well, nursing it in his hands on his lap.</p><p>“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Brex never spoke about it. Not many fond or easy memories left there…” Raven placed her cup back down onto the table, and sat back. “Yes, your father led Team BLLD. Brex Kamsari, Kaskol Liseran, Gisei Liseran, and Dahlia Umbros. They were in the year below my own team and I while at Beacon. Every school year Ozpin picked a favourite from the new crop.”</p><p>Thinking quietly as he took a sip of his tea, Shina hummed in understanding as he swallowed, placing his cup back in his lap to nurse it. “So is my team the favourite, or is it your daughter’s?”</p><p>“If Ozpin knew that trouble was brewing definitively, I wouldn’t put it past him to hedge his bets and cast a wider net.” Raven chuckled coldly, and Shina raised his eyebrows in agreement, which caused her to pause. “You and your team don’t have any love for Ozpin.”</p><p>“I owe Ozpin a lot. He encouraged me and motivated me every time I was close to giving up on myself as a leader. But his secrets and how willing he was to gamble with our lives...I lost a lot of friends at Beacon. Because of his failure.”</p><p>“Then there might just be hope for you after all.” Raven raised an eyebrow as she took in Shina’s expression over her tea. Shina snorted, and Raven smirked, the two of them giving each other small grins before their expressions turned serious again.</p><p>“But back to team BLLD. Ozpin picks his teams based on their uses as a unit and how they functioned. You can see it in yourselves. Meanwhile BLLD were chosen because they would be a team willing to do the sort of things that Ozpin wouldn’t have gotten away with asking normal upstanding Huntsmen to do. And I don’t just mean kill or steal or capture or what have you. Team BLLD were the team Ozpin could ask to suffer and they’d be okay with suffering. That was their use to him. The ones to travel into the dark so Ozpin and the others could fight in the light. And they were very, <em> very </em>good at it.”</p><p>Unwilling to interrupt, Shina watched and listened intently as Raven spoke, the woman looking down at her tea as if in memory, shadows flickering through her eyes at random moments as she mentally travelled through recollections of those years.</p><p>“I don’t know any details of their specific missions. I just know that every time I saw them they were just that little bit different. Darker. Colder. That was the price, and we were each paying it. But it was your father that was changing the most. He wasn’t always the way he turned out.”</p><p>“...darker and colder, huh? Like how Qrow has ended up?” Shina placed his words carefully, and felt a tingle of satisfaction as Raven scowled down at her tea. </p><p>So not the best relationship there either then.</p><p>So no connection to Qrow, none to Yang...what about Tai?</p><p>Thoughts for later.</p><p> </p><p>“Qrow has let Ozpin decide how much he’d let get taken from him, and then didn’t like when Ozpin kept taking. Being caged after growing up being free? He couldn’t handle it. He still can’t.” Shaking her head with a scoff, Raven put her cup down and sat back, resting her weight on her hands behind her. “But BLLD were different. It was what they were seeing that was eating away at them. They clamped shut about it, but...then they began to go rogue. Off mission. Vanishing for weeks at a time.”</p><p>“Well, I guess I inherited something from my father after all.” Smirking, Shina put his own cup down and unconsciously mirrored Raven’s posture, leaning back on his hands. Raven simply gave a small knowing smile.</p><p>“A key Kamisari trait has always been instincts. Even your grandmother was the same, according to stories your father told.”</p><p>“So you two knew each other pretty well then, huh?”</p><p>“Spend enough nights in silence around a campfire, you start talking just to fill the quiet. I’m sure you know that all too well.”</p><p> </p><p>Seeming to come to a decision, Raven pushed herself to her feet yet again and quietly made her way over to one of the numerous chests in a corner of her tent and opened one of them up, beginning to ruffle inside of it as she looked for something and Shina watched patiently. Now that it was just the two of them in the tent, Raven’s entire demeanour had shifted.</p><p>As the conversation was continuing, she seemed to be more open. More relaxed.</p><p>But it wasn’t condescending or patronising like it had been when his friends had been in the room as well.</p><p> </p><p>Tapping his fingers on the floor behind him in thought, Shina frowned for a moment before schooling his expression when Raven straightened and turned back around, a small old lockbox in her hand. Returning to the table, she placed it down and flicked the latch open, before sorting inside, eventually pulling out a few aged and frayed photographs. As she flicked through them, Shina glimpsed one of a much younger her, Qrow, Tai, and the woman who was clearly the fourth member of STRQ.</p><p>She looked just like Ruby.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Gods Taiyang, way to keep it in-house. That’d be like if Kylar got with both Tacita AND Chrystal. Gross.’ </em>
</p><p>Eventually Raven seemed to find the one she was looking for, and she placed it on the table, spinning it so Shina could see it properly. It was of a younger Raven, around the same age she was in the other photo, standing by a table with a group of other people. The other woman from her team was standing next to her, still dressed in the white cloak, but in this one her hood was down. Another four people were there, though two were standing at the table itself and two were in the background, clearly having been talking between each other but had looked over when they’d noticed a photo being taken.</p><p>Of the two standing at the table, Shina recognised his father immediately. Much younger, the same age as Raven. The same height as Shina was now, the same lean toned build, built for the exact same sword style he’d trained Shina in, though Brex had used a double-bladed sword staff. But his features were….healthier. And not simply in the ways young people <em> do </em>look healthier.</p><p>Brex had always looked drained. Greyed. Shina had assumed it was his injury and trauma that had done it, but seeing what he’d looked like before...he wasn’t so sure.</p><p>The person next to him, a woman, was honestly more adorable than anything else. Shoulder-height compared to Brex, making her the shortest person at the table. Midnight black hair she had short enough it would only have barely tickled her shoulders, pale Atlesian skin, dressed in dark purple and black leathers and a rich purple hooded cloak, and the most unique purple eyes Shina had ever seen.</p><p>As he studied her, his eyes were drawn to the satchel the woman was wearing. The spine of a book was visible sticking out of it, one that he recognised.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s Kaskol?”</p><p>“...yes.” Raven’s expression flickered into a soft smile for the <em> barest </em>of moments before she hid it again, her face returning cold. “Her twin brother is in the back. Identical twins, unlike my brother and I. Wherever Brex went, she went too.”</p><p>“...what was she like? She looks...nice.”</p><p>“She was. Kaskol was...a very special woman. But those sorts of stories can come later, <em> if </em> ever at all.” Raven’s face flicked into a frown for a moment as she internally shook away memories, and she took the photo back to return it to the box. “I suppose you want to know what happened between your father and I. You won’t like the story. But Ozpin <em> should </em>have at least told you the basics.”</p><p>“You fought him, at some point. And ended his career.”</p><p>“I did. It was necessary.” Raven said sternly, holding up a hand to stop Shina’s response just as he sat up and opened his mouth to give it, and she sighed, clearly bracing herself for a story she didn’t particularly want to think about. Picking up her tea again, she took a sip and closed her eyes to word the start of her thoughts. “As I mentioned, team BLLD kept going rogue towards the end. Vanishing. Ozpin began to grow suspicious, and eventually they were out of contact long enough he sent me to check on them. My Semblance led me straight to Kaskol. They were deep underground in a cave in Atlas, in a region called the Deep Freeze. I’m sure you can make a guess as to how it might earn that name. As for how off-mission they were, they were <em> supposed </em>to be in eastern Mistral.”</p><p>Frowning as his curiosity overpowered his urgency, Shina sat up properly and crossed his legs instead of having them spread out, and folded his hands on his lap. Noting that he’d calmed down and was listening properly, Raven’s eyes flicked with approval, before she continued.</p><p>“From how Kaskol worded it, they were searching for something. Because they were certain they’d uncovered a truth that not even Ozpin had told them, something they’d pieced together from all the ruins and dark places he’d sent them to over the years. A truth that they hadn’t told Ozpin they’d discovered.”</p><p>“...what was the secret?” Shina’s voice was clear, but quiet, listening intently almost as if he was under the spell of the story and information.</p><p>“What do you know about the four relics?” Tapping her fingers together, Raven took a deep breath to let it out slowly. She had to word the rest of this...very carefully. </p><p>If the Tacita girl started the compendium from the beginning, she’d get to these chapters eventually, but likely not for days since they were almost certainly in the last third of the book. But she was diving into the deep end with Shina in this conversation, so she had to be...careful.</p><p> </p><p>“There are four of them, obviously. The manifestations of the four core traits of what makes up humanity, left on Remnant by the two brothers after they created us. Choice, Knowledge, Creation, and Destruction. Each one is sealed in a vault in a different school, and can only be accessed by the Maiden from that climate.” Hesitating, Shina couldn’t stop the frustrated scowl coming over his face as he thought of everything they <em> didn’t </em>know. “We don’t know what they do, though. Which is annoying.”</p><p>“I’m amused that Logan and Tesse told you plenty of details about the relics, but almost nothing about anything else.” Raven chuckled judgmentally across from him, nursing her tea and rolling her eyes. There was no love lost in <em> those </em>relationships, clearly. Raven’s face went serious again as she nodded. “But that’s all correct. But...team BLLD, particularly Kaskol and her brother, had come up with their own theory.”</p><p>“...about?”</p><p>“The story had never stuck well with Gisei. Something had always seemed off about it, but apparently he hadn’t been able to word it until the team had found themselves in the ruins of an old tower in northern Vale. I don’t know what they found there. Kaskol never told me. But it led to her and her brother coming up with their theory.”</p><p> </p><p>Shina slowly took another sip of his tea in thought, finishing his cup and carefully pouring himself another one, Raven waiting patiently, only continuing when he’d taken a sip and placed his cup back down.</p><p> </p><p>“Think about the story. The two brothers supposedly created humanity equally between the two of them, yes? Their combined work, and a relic was created for each component of it.”</p><p>“...yeah. Never liked that story, honestly. Even when I was a kid. It always felt as if it made humanity too...organised. Cleanly cut.”</p><p>“Kaskol and Gisei thought the same. So think about the relics; Creation, Choice, Knowledge, and Destruction. Three relics for the brother of Light, and only one for the brother of Darkness, as part of a masterpiece that was supposedly made from both of them equally.” Pausing to let the words sink in, Raven watched as Shina pondered it for a moment before his eyes widened, and he looked up at her with frozen eyes. She nodded. “What you’re thinking right now, is exactly what Gisei had suspected from the start.”</p><p>“...what were the other two aspects that humanity was made from? That the god of Darkness gave them?”</p><p>“Good boy...very good. <em> That </em>was what team BLLD had dedicated themselves to figuring out. That was their hunt.”</p><p>“But, why would Ozpin <em> hide </em> something like that? Surely if there were two more, he’d tell you guys. And if there are two more aspects, does that mean there are two more relics? He wouldn’t hide the existence of two <em> relics </em>, would he?” Shaking his head in disbelief, Shina crossed his arms in a wall of denial as he thought about it, frowning and looking away and letting his mind race.</p><p>Raven paused a few moments, letting him frantically sink into paranoia, before she spoke up with a condescending sneer. “Does that <em> really </em>seem out of character for him, after all you know of him now?”</p><p>Thinking over it for a few more moments, Shina let out a loud sigh of defeat and disbelief, running his hands over his face and through his hair with his eyes closed, before slumping and opening his eyes again to look to Raven.</p><p>“Alright. Keep going…”</p><p> </p><p>Chuckling in amusement, remembering that sort of reaction to whenever Ozpin’s secrets were discovered, Raven folded her hands on the tabletop, her face sobering again.</p><p>“This is a tangent, but an important one for you to understand. Some Semblances aren’t activated or awakened or triggered, like yours or mine or the Goroesi boy’s. Some are passive, always there, always working without any conscious thought from the person who has them.”</p><p>Shina was already nodding before she finished, and she raised an eyebrow as he spoke up. “Chrystal’s Semblance is like that. It’s always in action.”</p><p>“I see…” Raising an eyebrow, Raven thought for a few moments before going back to the topic at hand and continuing. “Kaskol’s was the same. Seemingly through altering luck and chance, her Semblance always led her towards discovering <em> secrets </em> . And it was potent. During her time at the Academy it was just secrets about <em> people. </em> But it grew more powerful. <em> Too </em>powerful.”</p><p>She fell silent as Shina’s mind clicked into thought and he looked away again, narrowing his eyes in thought and seeming to mumble the occasional quiet word to himself. Not wanting to interrupt whatever he was contemplating, Raven simply sipped her tea and watched intently as the gears turned in the boy’s head.</p><p>Eventually Shina nodded, letting out a sigh of understanding.</p><p>“The book. She wrote them all down.”</p><p>“Every single one, big or small.” Raven nodded in confirmation, a small smile of approval in the corner of her lips.</p><p>“Shit…” Shina breathed out in wonder, shaking his head. “Well Tacita is going to have fun.”</p><p>Chuckling, Raven raised her eyebrows in agreement. “Not even <em> I’ve </em> read a <em> page </em>of that book, and Kaskol and I knew each other for years. I was one of only perhaps three people she'd ever let read the book without direct supervision. The others being her brother and your father.”</p><p>"So you two were close?" Shina tilted his head, no judgement in his expression, and Raven let a small smile touch the corner of her lips for the barest instant.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>“What does any of this have to do with you hurting my dad, though?”</p><p> </p><p>Tilting her head to acknowledge his point and nodding, Raven crossed her arms over her chest in preparation. “You’re not going to handle this well.”</p><p>“Try me.”</p><p>“I’m about to. Though your clear disdain for the man is certainly going to help.” Letting out a brief smirk for a moment, Raven sighed. “What do you know about your Semblance?”</p><p>“How is <em> that </em>-”</p><p>“It’s related, so answer me.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment as his defensiveness kicked in, Shina narrowed his eyes at her as walls appeared behind his eyes and his expression steeled, going cold and blank and every inch of the relaxation that had grown in the room vanishing in a single moment. “It has twelve levels, each one enhances my physical capabilities in a different way, progressively stronger each time. But the cost is that it drains my aura to use due to the enhanced abilities inflicting damage to my body in the process.”</p><p>Nodding in moderate confirmation, Raven gave a cold smile. “Of course that’s all you know. Ozpin told you nothing. Well, to start off with, you need to know that your father’s Semblance is the same. He has Cuts too.”</p><p>Freezing in shock yet again, Shina sat up even straighter and frowned. Brex had never told him his Semblance, or ever even really mentioned the existence of having one at all. But then again he’d kept all of his days as a Huntsman a private secret, no signs of them emerging apart from the man’s nightmares and his limp.</p><p>“...how? That’s...” Shina cut off as he kept thinking, Raven waiting patiently. </p><p>When his Semblance had awakened and the First Cut had appeared during the confrontation with his father when Brex accidentally hurt Chrystal, Brex had shown a flicker of terror. At the time Shina had just thought he had personally scared the man.</p><p>But…</p><p> </p><p>“How?”</p><p>“Hereditary Semblances are rare, but they exist. You know my daughter’s team, so you know Weiss Schnee. The Schnee Semblance is passed down through the bloodline. The Cuts are the same way. Your father has them, your grandmother had them, and so on.” Pausing for a moment to let Shina catch up mentally, Raven took another sip of her tea before continuing, knowing that the punches were only going to get stronger. “But a difference is, the Cuts grow stronger with each passing generation.”</p><p>“...stronger how?”</p><p>“Your father doesn’t have twelve cuts, he only has nine. Your grandmother had eight.”</p><p>Shina was spending a lot of time in the conversation completely silent as he processed everything, and Raven seemed to have expected it, content waiting patiently and sipping her tea, drifting off into her own thoughts as she structured the rest of the conversation. When Shina looked close to ready again, Raven spoke.</p><p>“If you’ve unlocked five, you’ve also realised the true cost. It’s not the damage done to your body.”</p><p>Now <em> that </em> was a train of thought Shina was more familiar with. Closing his eyes in resignation and acceptance, he nodded. He remembered all too vividly how the fourth Cut felt, and especially the fifth. How it messed with his mind, stripped away his senses. Everything became about killing, fighting. And how good it felt to do it, how <em> good </em>it felt to have those dark tendrils filling his veins with that hidden power deep inside of himself.</p><p>There was no control, no reasoning. Just the kill.</p><p> </p><p>He must have shown something in his eyes, some level of judgement and anxiety showing through the shields behind his eyes, because Raven hummed in acknowledgement and confirmation, a cold smile on her lips.</p><p> </p><p>“I suspected as much. I’m guessing it was the fall of Beacon that pushed you through the barrier around the fourth for the first time?”</p><p>“...barrier?”</p><p>“Surely you’ve noticed that each Cut is progressively harder to access for the first time.” Raven raised her eyebrow condescendingly, and when Shina blinked a few times in comprehension she nodded in relief. “Oh thank god, and here I was worried I’d have to tell you <em> all </em>the basics.”</p><p>“I <em> have </em>spent a few years studying myself, you know.” Shina narrowed his eyes in annoyance, and Raven raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Teenagers don’t tend to even know <em> how </em>, but to speed this conversation along I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt just this once.”</p><p>“Oh <em> thank </em>you.”</p><p>The corner of Raven’s mouth ticked into a small smile of amusement again, but she successfully hid it behind her teacup, instead raising an eyebrow at the sarcastic look on Shina’s face. He was getting snarky as a response to his anxiety and confusion, not an unusual reaction, but an amusing one all the same.</p><p>“You’re very welcome. But I’m right, aren’t I?”</p><p>“...yes. It was my second time going to the Fourth, and then my first time going into the Fifth.” Shina sighed, nodding in confirmation before looking down, only to frown and glance up when Raven didn’t respond, simply staring at him over her cup.</p><p>“Two at once?”</p><p>“...yes?”</p><p>Internally, Raven completely sharpened as she focused in on the boy. To evolve your Semblance two stages on the one night, in the one time of pressure, was...remarkable. Again, not unheard of, but no easy feat either. But then again, the Cuts were unique in that they <em> compelled </em>the user to force themselves further.</p><p>“And you’ve gone to the Fifth since, haven’t you. You’ve succumbed to it since then.”</p><p>The village. Shina immediately had to look away before he showed anything in his eyes, unable to hold his stare as the memory and guilt lanced through him. Raven hummed in confirmation to her suspicion.</p><p>“Inevitable. Especially since nobody prepared you. Ozpin could have.”</p><p> </p><p>When Shina had mentioned to Ozpin and Glynda that he’d felt the Fifth Cut within his reach if he strained for it, the two adults had been practically <em> scared </em> at the news, no matter how much they had tried to hide it. Glynda had expressed it at outrage at him for not telling them, meanwhile Ozpin had fallen silent as he always did when surprised. Shina wasn’t stupid, he could read a room.</p><p>At the time he’d thought they were worried he’d lose control during the tournament and hurt<em> himself.  </em></p><p>...apparently it went further.</p><p>Raven interrupted his thoughts.</p><p>“Sitting here right now, you can likely feel it. Your father could, once he reached the fifth. It ate away at him every waking moment, just on the edge of his awareness. Not enough to disrupt his work, but enough that in quiet moments he was aware.”</p><p>Nodding, that also being true, Shina met her eyes again. She was right, he’d been able to feel it in the corner of his mind ever since the village. Just <em> barely </em>there, scratching to get in and for him to touch it, to taste it.</p><p>“By the time I travelled to those caves to check on their team, Brex was able to reach the Eighth Cut. You’d never seen a man so drained and disturbed. Every moment, he was twitching and fidgeting. Paranoid and irritable. Barely sleeping, barely eating.” Raven shook her head in disappointment and no small amount of judgement. Brex had certainly not been a weak man, by any stretch, but he’d given into what he’d worked so hard to resist. She scoffed. “He’d been using them too much, but it wasn’t surprising considering the places they’d been travelling. There are types of Grimm in the dark places of the world that easily match the Drake currently frozen in Beacon.”</p><p> </p><p>Unable to stop himself, Shina looked down at his gloved hands. Ever since the village he could have sworn there were moments his skin was pale, he’d scrutinised his hands plenty of times, and his eyes throbbed occasionally. A lump of fear lodging in his throat, he looked back up at Raven, and it must have shown on his face yet again because she thinned her lips and poured him another cup of tea, pushing it to him for him to drink.</p><p>“Why <em> were </em>they in the caves?...”</p><p>“Kaskol didn’t tell me everything, no surprise there, and the others always followed her lead when it came to keeping their secrets, <em> also </em>no surprise there.” Raven couldn’t help but chuckle in amusement at the memory of the other woman. “But it was clear even to me that they believed themselves on the trail of one of the two secret relics.”</p><p>“...that was why they kept going rogue.” Shina nodded in understanding, progressively getting more and more overwhelmed to the point he was no longer able to sit up entirely straight, now resting his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, but still listening.</p><p>“It was a secret I was all too willing to keep from Ozpin. My own curiosity was piqued, and I was already becoming more certain of the man’s propensity for failure and misjudgement.” Raven scoffed at the thought of the man, rolling her eyes. “So I let them be. Returned to Ozpin, lied on their behalf, and continued on my own missions. Life went on. For a while.”</p><p> </p><p>At the dark tone Raven finished with, Shina looked up again and blinked at the shadow that had come over Raven’s eyes, and the woman actively looked as if she was close to fidgeting at the memories in her head.</p><p>“...what happened?”</p><p>“Dahlia, the fourth member of their team, had a powerful Semblance of her own. She called it <em> ‘Banshee’ </em> , claimed she could feel disaster and tragedy coming before it struck. The last time I saw her alive, at one of the meetings we <em> all </em> would have together, she mentioned she had felt something coming. A week later, Kaskol revealed that she had lost her journal. We assumed <em> that </em>was what had been coming.”</p><p>Shaking her head in a mixture of exhaustion and failure, Raven ground her jaw and her grip on her arms tightened. “Even I believed it. I knew how precious that journal was. But seeing it today changes that. Kaskol must have given it away. Because she must have <em> felt </em>the secret that was their doom, what Dahlia had felt was coming.”</p><p>Shina was sitting in complete silence, utterly enraptured by the story as Raven recounted it, and his eyes were scrutinising hers. There was no hiding the shadows in her expression now, she was too lost in the memories herself, and she squared her jaw before continuing.</p><p> </p><p>“Your father had reached the Ninth Cut.”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking, a thrill of anxiety went through Shina as he processed. He could barely handle the <em> fifth </em> cut, so he couldn’t imagine what the <em> ninth </em>must feel like. You’d probably lose control entirely, even if you suddenly practically had the strength and power to conquer a kingdom, not to mention the confidence.</p><p>But you’d have no senses at all.</p><p>No way to-</p><p><em> ‘...oh god. Oh </em> <b> <em>GOD</em> </b> <em> .’ </em></p><p> </p><p>“...he…no.” Shina’s eyes widened as his voice came out as a strained whisper, and every muscle in his body tensed in dread. In response, Raven simply nodded the once in confirmation.</p><p>“Yes. During a fight in some ruins in Vale, he used it for the first time, and he lost control. And he killed them.”</p><p> </p><p>Squeezing his eyes shut as his fear was confirmed, Shina was forced to let out his held breath slowly, barely doing it at all, just to remain calm. Taking another few breaths to focus himself, he remembered how he had felt in the village.</p><p><em> Nothing </em>had mattered except the blood. Except the kill.</p><p>He’d killed civilians.</p><p>And he’d attacked his friends. He’d almost killed Chrystal, the girl he loved like a sister.</p><p> </p><p>Even though Shina’s eyes were still closed and he was frozen in dread, Raven continued, her voice calm but clear.</p><p> </p><p>“My Semblance began to falter in how it connected to Kaskol, and I knew something was wrong, so I went to her just in time to see him drive his blade through her heart. The others were already dead.” Forcing herself to uncross her arms at the memory, all she could see in her mind were those corrupted golden eyes staring at her with a level of cold inhumanity that not even Grimm could reach. “He was out of control, so...I put him down. But I didn’t kill him.”</p><p>“...you broke his back, to stop him.”</p><p>“Yes. His aura was completely gone by the time I arrived, the Cuts had broken most of the bones in his body. It wasn’t particularly hard.”</p><p> </p><p>Managing to open his eyes slowly, Shina looked back up at her, his face pale and his eyes distant and heavy. Meeting his stare, Raven’s own eyes were clear and focused, her mind covered in a cold detachment at that particular part of the memory.</p><p>Brex had been a horror to fight, even being nearly dead from the damage. But that Semblance...the Cuts were capable of entering a league of their own. She’d never forget what it was like.</p><p>And just how much she’d hoped she’d never see it again.</p><p>But now a new Kamisari was in front of her, his Semblance three stages more potent than his father’s, but this boy was smarter, more focused, more capable.<br/>Raven couldn’t help but appraise him yet again, as Shina processed and began to get control of his panicked and dread-inducing thoughts.</p><p>“...why wouldn’t Ozpin tell me?”</p><p>“Because that’s what Ozpin does.” Scoffing, Raven gave a cold but sympathetic look, raising her eyebrows. “I’d bet everything that he was waiting for the moment of most use to <em> him </em> , and not to <em> you </em>. The moment you lost control the first time and came to him for help, and he’d offer the truth, and you’d ask him for help. Then you’d be his. Just like he’s clearly wanted from you.”</p><p> </p><p>As the words processed in Shina’s mind, Raven watched as the boy’s expression went from anxious and horrified, to dark and livid. The gold in his eyes pulsed, and she watched the rippling of his muscles tensing as his own hands increased and his jaw clenched.</p><p>Raising her eyebrow in emphasis, Raven tilted her head as Shina’s expression grew darker.</p><p>Over a minute, and eventually Shina couldn’t resist the energy and he rose to his feet, storming over to the other side of the tent and facing away, one hand clenched into a shaking fist at his side while the other ran through his hair and gripped a fistful of it at the back tight enough it must have hurt.</p><p>Raven finished her now cold tea silently and crossed her arms patiently, a cold smile in the corner of her mouth as she <em> watched </em>the boy’s loyalty to Ozpin shatter into pieces that turned to dust and blew away.</p><p>After a minute of dark rage, Shina spun on his foot rapidly and faced Raven, his eyes wild with anger and hurt that was gradually calming down, the boy’s self-control impressive considering he was almost certainly fighting against the call of the Cuts. So Raven raised her eyebrow at him patiently, and when he didn’t speak she thinned her lips and broke the silence herself.</p><p> </p><p>“The Kamisari’s have been Ozpin’s weapons for generations, Shina. Your father, your grandmother, further back. Even previous incarnations of Ozpin himself made use of them. You were destined to be groomed from the moment you learned to fight.”</p><p>“My <em> father </em>got me into fighting. I wanted a different life. Why would he guide me towards that sort of fate?”</p><p>“Guilt, shame, failure, fear. Pick one.” Raven shrugged, spreading her hands helplessly and almost mockingly. “I broke his back, not the strings Ozpin attached to him.”</p><p> </p><p>Snarling in fury, Shina turned away again and gripped his hair with both hands, storming in a pace back and forth across the tent a few times before laughing coldly and angrily. “God when this is all finished I’m going to have <em> words </em>with my father.”</p><p>Scoffing and shrugging in agreement, Raven crossed her arms again, pausing a few moments before raising an eyebrow in sharp curiosity. “And what constitutes as all of ‘this’ being finished? Your mission for dear Ozpin?”</p><p>Turning to face her, Shina spread his own arms helplessly for a moment before letting them fall back down by his sides, looking down in resignation when in a single moment his anger bled out into exhaustion. The weight of everything was on his shoulders, and he sighed.</p><p>“Ozpin or not, Haven is in danger. I won’t let it fall if I can stop it.”</p><p>“Admirable. But...what makes you think you’re not a danger to Haven yourself?” Raven rose to her feet herself and made her way over to stand across from Shina, meeting his stare and giving him a firm questioning look. “You were forced to the Fifth at Beacon, and it’s haunted you ever since. You’ve lost control before. Think of what could happen if you lost it at Haven.”</p><p> </p><p>Narrowing his eyes in thought, Shina wasn’t stupid, and he raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms as he met Raven’s stare. “And what are <em> you </em>suggesting?”</p><p>“I’m making an offer. I can do what Ozpin and Brex didn’t do. I can teach you how to control the Cuts, I can help you progress and focus. <em> And </em>I’m able to keep you contained every time you slip along the way.” Raven gestured between the two of them with raised eyebrows.</p><p>“...and in exchange?”</p><p>“You stay here. You join <em> me </em>. Your mission was to ensure the safety of the Maiden? Then stand at my side. Protect my people.”</p><p> </p><p>As Raven kept her gesture extended and her eyebrow raised in offer, Shina frowned in thought, his arms still crossed as he tapped his fingers on his bicep.</p><p>Join a bandit tribe? That’d go down well with the others, for sure.</p><p>While he wasn’t sure where Chrystal would fall, her mind and morals had become unknown even to him and <em> he </em>knew her better than anybody, there was no chance Kylar or Tacita would go along with it.</p><p>It would be insane to even bring it up.</p><p>But he remembered how he felt at the village. He remembered what he did.</p><p> </p><p>The others had barely been enough to stop him, and they’d only managed it because he was exhausted and injured from the fight up to that point, otherwise even <em> he </em>knew they wouldn’t have been able to.</p><p>Without control, he was a risk to civilians, to <em> everyone.  </em></p><p>If he fought when Haven was attacked, and he lost control, he’d be just as much of a threat to the city as he would be a threat to Salem’s forces.</p><p>Deep down, he knew it.</p><p>But…</p><p>“You’re doing what you said Ozpin would do. Scaring me and then trying to get me obligated to you by offering to help me.”</p><p>“I’m also offering something that Ozpin never would; honesty. I’ll answer every question, I’ll be transparent every step of your training.” Raven gave a confident and encouraging half-smile. “And I’m also offering something else that Ozpin <em> never </em>dares to; freedom. My people aren’t bound to remain here, they’re free to leave whenever they wish.”</p><p> </p><p>When Shina fell into thought, Raven extended her hand and waited, her face determined and showing just how serious she was about what she was offering.</p><p>And she <em> was </em>serious. Having a Kamisari in the tribe was a major power, secondary only to her own abilities as a Maiden. Even though he could only reach the Fifth Cut for now, once he climbed higher Shina could be one of the strongest in the camp.</p><p>He just needed training. A purpose.</p><p>Some focus.</p><p>Seeing that he was considering the offer, she spoke again.</p><p> </p><p>“You have my word. You’re free to leave at any point in your training if you feel satisfied at the level you reach.”</p><p>“It’d be almost impossible to convince the others to go along with it.” Still meeting her stare, Shina thinned his lips and set his jaw as he thought it over.<br/>If the four of them simply rushed to Haven straight away, they’d be putting the city in danger. From <em> him. </em></p><p>“Take today and the night to talk it over. You’re welcome to leave and return to town for it, of course. But I want their decisions by noon tomorrow.”</p><p>“Their?”</p><p>“You’ve already made yours. We both know that.” Raven’s lips curled into a confident smile, and Shina’s expression composed itself seriously as he let out a sigh.</p><p>“And I can leave whenever I choose?”</p><p>“Yes. But once you leave, you can’t come back.” Raven’s eyes sharpened into razors as she drove that point home.</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at Raven’s extended hand, Shina took in another deep breath and let it out slowly, his own hand twitching at his side with the impulse to move.<br/>But he’d made enough reckless decisions in the past, far too many.</p><p>In the moment, he’s reminded of when Chrystal snuck up to the Atlas airship and made a deal with a devil just for progress, out of frustration and fear.</p><p>This felt pretty similar to how she must have felt up there, except the stakes were far higher.</p><p> </p><p>Meeting her stare again and ignoring her outstretched hand, he clicked his tongue slowly.</p><p>“Give me a night to talk it through with them. Tomorrow you’ll have our answer.”</p><p>Lowering her hand, Raven gave him a look that could almost have been called approval, but she hid it quickly, instead raising her eyebrow and giving a single nod.</p><p>“You have until noon tomorrow. From the minute the deadline passes, you’ll once again be Huntsmen to us. And we know you’re here now. So I’d recommend you then move along quickly.”</p><p> </p><p>Without another word, Raven jerked her head towards the flap of the tent, the message clear, and Shina nodded, grabbing his sword up from where he’d placed it and heading out into the morning sunlight.</p><p> </p><p>As the tent flap closed after Shina's departure, Raven couldn't help but hum to herself in thought as she watched where he'd left, and a small intrigued smile touched the corners of her mouth. This could change the balance of power a great deal, especially having the book back in the hands of a Huntsmen team cynical enough and detached from Ozpin enough to actually make use of it properly. Even if Shina rejected her offer, which she doubted he would, and he and his team left, they'd be drawn to follow the clues of the book, and she highly doubted they'd encounter Ozpin again to tell him of her secret.<br/>And with the tribe looking to move camp in the next few days regardless, since after the raid on Shion there weren't any major targets left in the area, her location would remain hidden anyway.</p><p>But to make sure she was still reasonably safe, some things had to be kept track of.<br/>And there was a big variable that the kids had reminded her of during their conversation; The relics.<br/>While normally they would have been easy to ignore, locked safely away in their vaults, having confirmation that the new Fall Maiden explicitly worked on Salem's orders meant that there was every chance that the Relic Of Choice was in the hands of the horror who could use it to tear apart the world.</p><p>Clicking her tongue in thought, she sighed in resignation as she moved the flap aside to check the time of day and the weather. </p><p>While there was plenty of work to do for the rest of the day, it appeared that once it was late enough in the evening that she could move about without being noticed...she'd be going out to have a conversation with her darling brother.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Timeline wise we have reached Volume 4, Chapter 4!</p><p> </p><p>Next chapter is going to take a bit longer to write than usual, since I've got another story I've been wanting to start playing with. I'll finish this one before I get TOO stuck into the new one, considering Red Thread Noose only has 5-6 chapters left anyway! :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Stay Or Go</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>With twenty-four hours to make their decision, the members of team SKTC clash one more time as their philosophies and mental states fight to see which one dominates. Tacita looks to the Compendium for any help she can find on Shina's Cuts, but she finds more hidden secrets than she hoped for.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>On the far side of the tribe’s camp, tucked away where they wouldn’t be bothered by more than suspicious stares, Tacita and Kylar passed the time silently, Kylar sitting on the grass with his legs crossed and his eyes close in concentration, his hands together and slightly above his lap, palms showing to the air.</p><p>Air dust was something he’d been having trouble crafting ever since he’d unlocked his transmutation, the particular mood and temperament for it having been hard to slide himself into ever since they’d gotten onto the road.</p><p>At Beacon he’d all too easily found himself in the more carefree and confident mood needed to attune well with what was the most free-spirited of the Dust elements, but he was a different person now. Of all types of Dust, water and ice had been the easiest to create, with his mind in the more serious and subdued space that water and ice agreed with.</p><p>But even when he created ice and water dust, the crystals he created were impure and cracked, too fragile for Tacita to use for her arrowheads or Chrystal for creating rudimentary dust bullets, but it suited <em> his </em>purposes well enough.</p><p> </p><p>With nothing else to do while they waited for Shina to finish speaking with Raven, and there was no way of knowing just how long that could take, he’d settled in and focused. Tacita had done her best to teach him how to meditate, but he still fidgeted regularly, always slightly snapping himself out of it when he did so, much to Tacita’s amusement and his frustration.</p><p>Reaching his awareness out to the light breeze swirling around them, he tried to find the mental place he knew was in him that was more relaxed and easygoing, the sort of whimsical confidence that air dust had always felt like when he touched it. Using his aura, he tried to pull the surrounding breeze towards his hands to focus it, coaxing it with his aura to take shape. The drain on his aura was noticeable, even though his finesse was growing sharper by the day and his reserves themselves were growing larger the more he strained them in the exercise.</p><p>While his aura reserves still didn’t match Shina’s, they had surpassed Tacita’s months ago, and were climbing steadily. Though he still had by far the slowest recovery time out of all of them, even slower than Chrystal’s.</p><p> </p><p>Finding the slight tickling in his mind as he found the right part of himself, the right element of his personality that had been there so strongly his whole life until the battle at Beacon had sobered him, he felt the telltale sensation of his aura purifying the breeze above the palms of his hands, and concentrating on a single point.</p><p>Opening his eyes, he looked down at his hands and concentrated further, forming the purified ingot of creative energy and watching the crystal form, growing from the size of a speck of dirt into the size of a golf ball over the course of a minute.</p><p>Once his aura dropped low enough he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it much larger, he released it and allowed it to drop to his hand where he immediately absorbed the dormant energy into his aura, formed it appropriately, and shot his hand forward to release it in a concentrated blast of wind, the power of it ruffling his hair, and Tacita’s, as it blew outwards from him and sent empty crates and broken branches scattering across the clearing.</p><p>Some of the bandits grouped nearby looked over in alarm, hands going to weapons, but when they saw they were both sitting relaxedly and nothing had truly been damaged they relaxed slowly, turning back to their conversation with a final series of glares in their direction, Kylar and Tacita ignoring them.</p><p> </p><p>The sound of a page turning behind him had Kylar glance over his shoulder to where Tacita was leaning against the wooden palisade, her knees up so she could rest the compendium on her lap and read it comfortably.</p><p> </p><p>She glanced up at him with an amused raised eyebrow, but there was a small proud smile on her lips as well.</p><p>“You managed wind, again? You’re getting better at switching. That was faster than usual as well, once you found the mental state.”</p><p>“Not fast enough, and the aura drain was still concerning.” Sighing in consideration, Kylar laid back on the grass and looked up at the cloudy skies above, enough gaps of blue that the sun shone through now that winter was truly in the past and spring dominated the weather.</p><p>“You don’t need to be much faster, I doubt you’ll be using it mid-combat.”</p><p>“Brothers I hope not.” Kylar groaned at the thought of how stressful and exhausting that would be. “Just to replenish my pouches as we go.”</p><p>“You’re getting there. I doubt you’ll be running out of water and ice ever again.”</p><p>“I still haven’t managed fire, or lightning.”</p><p>“You’ve never been particularly passionate or aggressive, love. So don’t beat yourself up for not managing fire.” Tacita turned another page of the compendium, a frown having been on her face ever since she’d started it. “As for lightning, you might need to wait until the first spring storm.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in agreement, Kylar closed his eyes and frowned as he thought over it. If he could only transmute lightning dust during a storm, he’d never stand a chance of sustaining his supplies of it while on the road purely through his Semblance. There had to be another way.</p><p>But a hum of curiosity got his attention, and he opened his eyes again to strain and look over at where his girlfriend had looked up from the book to stare off into her own thoughts.</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>“This girl...she saw a lot. She started writing this during her last year at Beacon, once she discovered Ozpin was planning on recruiting her team.”</p><p>“...how?”</p><p>“Her Semblance. From what she and her brother could figure out, it affected probability and her instincts to make sure she was led towards secrets. People in conversation near her were more likely to let things slip even if they were talking to someone else and she could just overhear, she was able to randomly browse in the library and always pick the right book to give a clue, she often ended up in the right place at the right time…”</p><p>“Shit, that sounds useful. God knows we could have used that while we were trying to figure out what was happening last year. No wonder Ozpin wanted her.”</p><p>“It was <em> hell </em> for her, apparently. Enough that she was looking for ways to get rid of a Semblance entirely so she could be rid of it. But she still had enough sense to start writing everything down. And I mean <em> everything </em>. I’m reading gossip on people I have no context for, just her classmates.” Tacita couldn’t help but give an amused chuckle, raising an eyebrow in amusement as she looked over at him. “One of her classmates was cheating on her boyfriend with three people, apparently.”</p><p>“Oof, poor guy.” Kylar winced in sympathy, before smirking cheekily. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you hon?”</p><p>“Sorry but I was sleeping with Jaune for three months before Beacon fell.” Speaking dryly, Tacita didn’t even dignify him with a glare, going back to the book.</p><p>“...didn’t he and Pyrrha have a thing?”</p><p>“We shared. Concurrently.”</p><p>When Kylar didn’t respond at first, Tacita finally looked down at him with a judgemental glare at the strangely dreamy look on his face.</p><p>“You’re picturing it, aren’t you. For such a unique egg, you’re such a guy at times.”</p><p>“Well I’m not picturing the <em> Jaune </em>part…”</p><p>Scoffing in judgement, Tacita couldn’t quite stop the fond smirk that came across her lips, and when Kylar saw it he grinned up at her. Seeing it out of the corner of her eye with her Semblance, she simply raised her eyebrows down at him before going back to reading.</p><p> </p><p>Pushing himself to sit up, Kylar groaned as he stretched before going back to his meditating now that his aura had recharged, but instead of concentrating on any form of dust he merely focused on centering his own mind, letting himself remain lucid enough to maintain conversation.</p><p>“But in all seriousness, anything interesting so far?”</p><p>“Nothing we don’t already know. Ozpin brought them in on the secret even before they graduated, Kaskol overheard <em> why </em>he did when he spoke with Glynda about it in his office one time, she arrived early for a meeting with him and she listened in through the door. Ozpin let them in on it early because of her, to get in early before she discovered it for herself.”</p><p>“Well that makes sense, as grossly manipulative as it is. He got to dictate the narrative that way.”</p><p> </p><p>Humming in agreement, Tacita went back to reading quietly. The start of the book <em> was </em>written more like the journal of a young girl going through a year at school, but there were already signs of the sort of book it seemed that it would eventually become. The tidbits and clues Kaskol had been stumbling across were already beginning to pile up.</p><p>And it had begun to wear on the girl a lot. Her Semblance was one hell of a burden on her, she had found it very hard to make friends unless she kept it a secret.</p><p>According to the book, the only people who truly got close to her were her team, considering her teammate Dahlia <em> also </em> had a Semblance of her own that made people avoid her, and another of her teammates was her own twin brother. Meanwhile Brex was just...open. Friendly. Nothing to hide, so nothing for her Semblance to sabotage or expose.</p><p>From the way Kaskol wrote about him, he was a lot like Shina had been in their first year, and had quickly become Kaskol’s closest friend and, frankly, her protector.</p><p>She was up to the fifteenth page of a book that was easily going to be six hundred pages long and was only going to get denser and more complicated, and that wasn’t including all the other pieces of parchment that had been glued or stapled in with different things written or drawn on them. But it was already <em> utterly </em>enrapturing to read, and Tacita found it easy for the time waiting for Shina to slip away as she read through it.</p><p> </p><p>But gods Kaskol had been depressed.</p><p> </p><p>“...where’s Chrystal?” Opening an eye, Kylar noticed that Chrystal still hadn’t joined them, even though it would have been pretty easy to find them.</p><p>Tacita answered without looking up from the book, able to see Chrystal clearly even from the other side of the camp. Her range had been expanding large enough that if it was any larger she would have had to leave the camp entirely just so she wouldn’t overhear the conversation happening in private.</p><p>“She’s pacing back and forth in front of Raven’s tent.”</p><p>“Figures. Anyone bothering her?”</p><p>“Not really. She’s being watched just like we are.”</p><p> </p><p>Humming in acknowledgement, Kylar took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before reaching down to place his hand on the ground just in front of him, soaking his aura into the ground until it stroked along the dirt and mud. Reaching into his mind, he found his patience, his certainty, and focused on it.</p><p>Things were going to be okay. Shina wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t as reckless as he used to be. They had to trust that he knew what he was doing, and if things went wrong then Chrystal was right close by to jump in, and Tacita would also see it and they’d be able to react as well. While they weren’t <em> safe, </em>they had an idea of what they were doing.</p><p>It was just a matter of waiting for Shina to get what he wanted, because Kylar knew his friend well enough to know that Shina wouldn’t let Raven go until he’d found out whatever it is he wanted to know.</p><p>And they just had to trust that he knew how much to give away in exchange, without endangering any of them past the point of being able to handle the potential consequences.</p><p>As he sank into that mental space, finding that patience and trust and certainty in himself, he felt the mud and dirt beneath the palm of his hand begin to crystallize and be drawn together into a concentrated ingot. After holding his focus as long as he could manage without lowering his aura to dangerous levels, he opened his eyes and looked down at the earth dust he’d transmuted, plucking the tennis-ball sized crystal from the ground and tossing it up and down in his hand a few times.</p><p>The Kylar he’d been before the fall had never been able to ‘agree’ with earth dust, it hadn’t suited who he was. But he was a different man now.</p><p>They were all different people.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at the crystal and studying it, he noted the cracks and distortions of the impurities and fragility of it. The dust he created wasn’t of high quality, it was too unstable for either of the other dust-users in his team to make use of, but it was solid enough to keep in his pouches or safely store in the solid compartments of his staff.</p><p>Placing the earth dust to the side, he focused on transmuting some more air, and after easily ten minutes of concentration and introspection as he was forced to shift mental states entirely, he had another golf ball sized air crystal in the palm of his hands.</p><p>Humming in thought, he picked up the earth dust as well and looked at the two of them in his hands, frowning as he pondered. Once they left the camp he was going to spend some time later in the day practicing his different combinations. Now that he focused on a more sequence-oriented process when it came to his alchemy he had been able to come up with a wide variety of new combinations and results.</p><p>But earth and air were two elements that usually sparked each other into nothing, they were incompatible.</p><p>For now.</p><p>He might just have to be a bit clever.</p><p> </p><p>Satisfied for now, he grabbed his carving tool from his belt and spent the next few minutes sanding and carving the crystals until they were the right shape to click into compartments in his staff. Eventually he believed he’d be able to control the shape the dust fuzed into when he created it, but for now he had to do things the hard way.</p><p>Finishing up, he loaded the dust into his staff just in time to hear Tacita close the book quietly behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder at her.</p><p>Tacita’s face was deep in thought, her eyes lost in reflection as she thought over what she’d been reading, but she didn’t mention anything about it as she spoke.</p><p>“Shina’s out. He and Chrystal are on their way. It doesn’t look good.”</p><p>Sighing in resignation and to steel himself for whatever might be to come, Kylar pushed himself to his feet and reached a hand down to help Tacita up, taking a moment to press a reassuring kiss to her forehead, before grabbing his staff.</p><p>Making sure to keep it in his hand to be ready at a moment’s notice, he held Tacita’s hand in his other as they quietly made their way across the camp to meet up with the other two. And Tacita had been right, Shina’s expression was withdrawn and serious as they approached, meanwhile Chrystal looked just as concerned as they did, Shina clearly saving whatever it was he had to say until he could say it to all three of them at once.</p><p>Once they reached him he didn’t give them time to talk, merely shaking his head.</p><p>“Not here, we’re going back to town. We need to talk.”</p><p>Tacita and Kylar looked at each other with concerned eyes, before Kylar nodded, frowning.</p><p>“Are we safe?”</p><p>“For now. But...later. We need to talk. I’ll explain everything once we’re in private. But none of you are going to like it.”</p><p>With no idea what to say, Kylar simply braced his shoulders before following after Shina as the other man walked past towards the gate, a simple look to the guards enough for them to open the heavy wooden barrier just enough for the four of them to slip out and make their way back to town.</p><p>Despite concerned nudges from Chrystal, and the occasional glance from Tacita, Shina didn’t look at any of them or speak the entire way back to the tavern, his shoulders set and his face shielded, but his eyes were deep in thought. And whatever the thoughts were, they were clearly dark.</p><p> </p><p>The moment they were back in Kylar and Tacita’s room, all of them comfortable around the room as they prepared to listen, Shina began to pace back and forth, running his hands over his face and giving a drained sigh before turning to face them, making sure to lock eyes with each of them in turn.</p><p>They’d never seen his face like this before, nor his posture. Shina was rigid, not a single sign of relaxation or aloofness in him, his eyes dark and sharp and his face set in such a way that to anyone who didn’t trust him it would have been intimidating. It was as if his Leader Face had grown to be able to encompass his entire body.</p><p>It was enough that all three of them straightened up on reflex, and Chrystal’s eyes hardened into the black ice that had become her most concerning trademark, just in preparation for whatever was able to come.</p><p>“Alright, I don’t want to repeat any of this. In fact there’s a lot of this I don’t want to think about ever again, even though I’m going to have to…” Shina trailed off for a moment, a frown appearing on his face as his eyes flickered into thought for the briefest moment before he focused again. “This might take a while.”</p><p> </p><p>It did.</p><p> </p><p>He told them everything, starting from the very beginning. The truth about team BLLD, Kaskol and Gisei’s theory, Raven’s association with them and what happened between her and his father. That led into him explaining everything Raven had told him about his Semblance, how it related to his father, and what it was going to do to him if he kept using it and it kept getting stronger.</p><p>When he explained the truth about Kaskol, including the book, and including her eventual demise, Tacita’s hand drifted from her lap towards her satchel where the compendium was stored, and a lump of sympathy and grief appeared in her throat on behalf of a girl she didn’t know but had read the thoughts of.</p><p>Meanwhile Kylar’s expression didn’t change much, his thoughts whirring as he processed everything Shina said and he put it up on his mind like a corkboard along with everything else they knew, and he began to attach the threads just like he had a year ago. But the web was more convoluted now, more connections and clues and plenty of them going nowhere.</p><p>At every mention of Ozpin’s failure of Shina, and the many small betrayals, Chrystal’s grip on the table she was sitting on crew tighter and tighter, the leather of her gloves creaking in the strength of her grip, and her eyes grew darker and darker, the <em> very last </em>shreds of loyalty and fondness she had for the man breaking away.</p><p>Unlike the others, she’d seen the true results of Ozpin’s failure. She’d crawled through it.</p><p>Any positive feelings she’d had for the man had turned to ghosts the moment she’d slid her blade into Reika’s heart.</p><p>The last of them vanished into nothing.</p><p> </p><p>And finally, he told them about Raven’s offer.</p><p> </p><p>He was met with total silence. Just like he’d expected.</p><p> </p><p>Kylar spoke first. <em> Also </em>just like Shina had expected.</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p>“I understand why, Kylar. But-”</p><p>“No. Think about what we’ve seen in the past month of being in the region, Shina. We’ve stepped over bodies they’ve left behind. Literally.” Kylar couldn’t resist pressing his hand against the bedpost next to where he was sitting on the mattress in his spark of frustration, an emotion rarer on him than anything else except true rage. “I don’t care how helpful she claims she could be. <em> We </em> can help you train and gain control. And if not us, maybe the headmaster at Haven might be able to help. There’s every chance <em> he </em>knew your father too, and might be willing.”</p><p>“That’s a lot of ‘maybes’ and ‘mights’ that put civilian lives on the line, Kylar.” Shina sighed, closing his eyes in resignation and shaking his head. “If the battle comes to Haven and I’m not completely ready, I’ll be fighting crippled. I can’t use my Semblance in a major battle with my current level of control, and I’d <em> need </em>it at Haven when the fight comes.”</p><p>“<em> No </em> , Shina. She’ll use you, she’ll keep you in line so that you don’t stop her from doing what her people do. Stopping people like her is <em> our job, </em>Shina.” Kylar practically growled, narrowing his eyes as the pressure he was putting on the bedpost increased.</p><p>A pause began in the room as the two men stared each other down, but there was no anger or hostility in the staring match, merely each giving a look that wanted the other one to understand where they were coming from.</p><p>“I could be even more of a danger than she is. Even if I don’t stay with her, we can’t stop her. She’ll keep doing what she does anyway, except the only difference is she won’t be helping me as well.”</p><p>“That’s a cold mentality to take, Shina.” Kylar spoke firmly, clicking his jaw. “Would you really have it in you to just sit in her camp while she goes out on raids, knowing what she’s doing in between trying to help you?”</p><p>“Compared to now having to sit in a camp with you three every night terrified that the next fight is the one where I lose control and kill you?”</p><p>“You’re only at the fifth, Shina. You’re not where your father reached.”</p><p>“The fifth was enough for me to already try once.”</p><p> </p><p>That shut Kylar up. It was an inarguable point, and Kylar sighed in frustration before looking away first, breaking the staring contest and looking off at the nearest wall in thought. Next to him, Tacita looked contemplative, a light frown on her face as she pondered over it.</p><p>She always took moral conundrums patiently, sometimes taking hours or days to come to a decision. It had been a handicap during their previous investigation, but none of them had possessed the confidence or security to point it out.</p><p>Tapping her fingers on her legs, her hands resting in her lap, Tacita looked up at Shina with that same delicate frown.</p><p>“I don’t like it. But...it <em> would </em>mean we’re keeping an eye on her. There’s no denying or changing what she is, I think it’s an obvious assumption she won’t be going to Haven. But staying would mean being able to at the very least keep an eye on her in case she’s discovered and they come for her. But Kylar’s right, it would also mean being in her hands. At her mercy. Enabling her to…” She flinched, her memory clear of the carnage they’d all seen on their travels. But because of her Semblance, passing through those towns meant she’d seen more of it than the others had. “To keep doing what she does on our watch. We stay, we enable her. We continue, we protect Haven.”</p><p> </p><p>Falling silent, her position clear, Tacita looked down at her lap and closed her eyes to continue to think. When it was clear she was done, Shina turned to Chrystal, who was staring up at the roof in thought with her eyes still sealed in that cold and lethal black ice. But it was gradually melting as she thought over it emotionally as well as pragmatically, allowing both sides of her mind to consider the problem.</p><p>It took a while, the minutes stretched on as she mulled, before she looked to Shina and the corner of her mouth tipped into a small supportive smile.</p><p>“Whatever you decide, I’ll follow.”</p><p>“...just like that?” Shina blinked, frowning in surprise, before blinking again when she gave a deep nod.</p><p>“I’ll...be honest.” Letting out a breath, Chrystal crossed her arms over her chest, well aware of the truth she was about to lay out. “I don’t <em> care </em> about a lot of this. Not anymore, and certainly not now you’ve told us what Ozpin wanted to do to you. Haven can look after itself, Ozpin will come back and get more allies, the war will be fought. The world can look after itself. But if <em> you </em> can’t, then <em> that </em> matters to me. Where you go, I’m coming.”</p><p>The other three were looking over at her in silence, with no idea how to respond or, in Kylar’s case, even properly process what she’d just said. Kylar and Tacita glanced at each other in concern as they thought, meanwhile Shina’s face broke into a soft and grateful smile.</p><p>“...thanks Chrysalis.”</p><p>Smiling at the nickname, Chrystal shrugged playfully and casually. “Always.”</p><p>At that, the room fell silent once again, each of them losing themselves into thoughts as Shina finally sank down into the nearest empty chair and buried his head in his hands, closing his eyes and gripping his hair in stress, losing himself in the threats of the decision they had to make.</p><p>Eventually it was Tacita who broke the silence.</p><p>“If we have until noon tomorrow, then give me the night with the compendium. I’ll look through the recent chapters and see what she left behind. There might be something about the Cuts, if she was able to figure out your dad reached the Ninth.”</p><p>Thinking over it for a moment, Shina nodded in agreement. “That’s a good idea. We have...” He checked the time on his scroll, and thinned his lips. “Twenty-three hours.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding as if that was the end of her part in any of the conversation, Tacita immediately pulled the compendium from her bag and scooted back on the bed until her back was against the wall, pulled her knees up, and immediately went back to reading, though this time with far more focus as she flicked to the final third of the book to scrutinise it for any clues.</p><p>Kylar glanced over his shoulder at her for a moment before looking back to Shina and sighing, shrugging helplessly.</p><p>“It’s a horrific idea, Shina. It’s wrong.”</p><p>Chrystal gave Kylar a dry raised eyebrow. “You’d rather keep working for <em> Ozpin? </em>”</p><p>“I’d rather keep working for the people. The ones we’re sworn to protect.”</p><p>“We never exactly got the chance to swear those vows.” Chrystal crossed her arms and sat back, keeping her eyes on Kylar. “<em> Every </em> person so far who knows the truth has <em> lied </em> to us and then tried to <em> use </em> us. Ozpin, Qrow, <em> your goddamn </em> <b> <em>parents</em> </b> <em> ! </em>At least Raven has been honest so far. Has offered to help.”</p><p>“Only while leading a bandit tribe that have killed <em> hundreds </em>in the past couple of months alone.” Kylar raised his own eyebrow at her, and Chrystal huffed.</p><p>This was an impasse. Neither of them were going to budge, and sitting in-between them Shina could feel it in the atmosphere of the room.</p><p>Eventually, Kylar sighed, and his eyes flicked to Shina.</p><p>“I get that you’re afraid of yourself right now. But you can’t let it influence your decisions, not when so much is on the line. Don’t let fear get in the way of our duty to protect others, and not just protect ourselves. Haven needs us. Even if Raven stays away from the vault and keeps the Maiden powers hidden, Salem will still come for the city. We need to be there. It’s our job.”</p><p> </p><p>When Shina didn’t respond, the other boy having put his face back into his hands out of sheer exhaustion, Kylar thinned his lips and looked around at each of them, even looking over his shoulder at where Tacita was reading.</p><p>“We have twenty-three hours. By breakfast tomorrow we need to talk again and come to our decision.”</p><p>Unsurprisingly, Tacita didn’t respond beyond giving a nod without looking up from the book, meanwhile Shina nodded into his hands and then stood, grabbing his sword and slinging it onto his back where it belonged.</p><p>“I need to think. I’ll see you all for breakfast.”</p><p>As Shina left without a word more than that, Chrystal watched him go with concerned eyes, sitting quietly and staring at the door after it clicked closed for a minute before hopping to her feet as well, her harness still on her back. Pausing for a moment as she lost herself in her own thoughts, she looked over to Kylar.</p><p>“<em> That </em> was a low blow, even for you.”</p><p>“But a necessary one.”</p><p>“Just like it might be a necessary one for <em> you </em> to consider that you shouldn’t let your doubt in <em> him </em>dictate your own choices. You doubt every one of us except for yourself. And then you wonder why he doesn’t trust himself. You’ve never gone so far as to doubt his moral compass before.”</p><p>Not giving Kylar time to respond, Chrystal merely glared at him for a moment before she left the room as well, closing the door behind herself gently despite what was clearly her current mood.</p><p>Kylar sat quietly for a few moments, before standing and grabbing his staff, slinging it onto his back as well for it to click into place on the gravity crystal that held it there. He turned to look over to where Tacita was watching him with gentle eyes.</p><p>“I’ll give you the room for you to read. I need to walk anyway.”</p><p>“Be safe, love. I’ll hope that this book has <em> something </em>that might help us.”</p><p>“I’ll try not to wake you when I get back.”</p><p>“You think you’ll be out that late?”</p><p>“Considering the cost of this choice...most likely.”</p><p>Looking at her boyfriend quietly, Tacita could see the stress in his eyes even as he tried to hide it with a calm and collected expression otherwise. Giving him another small smile, she kept her eyes on him as he walked over to give her a soft kiss, and then he left the room as well, leaving her alone with the book and her thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>As Shina quietly but quickly made his way downstairs, his hands already in his pockets and his eyes closed in thought, he didn’t open them again until he emerged from the tavern entirely and stepped out into the midday sun. Letting out a drained sigh, he looked around indecisive about where to even go next, before picking a random direction and starting to walk.</p><p>He only made it a handful of paces before he could feel himself being watched, and when he turned to look back towards the tavern he met eyes with the casually leaning form of Lexica, who was watching him calmly as she slowly ate through a small hot fresh loaf of bread, tossing bite-sized chunks into her mouth playfully.</p><p>When he caught her watching him, he merely raised an eyebrow, and she took it as permission to finally skip the paces needed to join him, stopping only arm’s length away.</p><p>Shina flicked his eyes up and down her to take in the fact she was still wearing her armour, eyes lingering on the whip on her hip, and also enjoying the journey up along the tight outfit anyway, when he reached her face again after only a second she had clearly just finished giving him the same once-over, and she gave him a small but friendly smile, causing him to raise his eyebrow higher.</p><p>“Afternoon Lexica. What’s up?”</p><p>“You guys decided whether or not you’re going to take the offer yet?”</p><p>“You know about that, then.”</p><p>“Of course.” Lexica nodded, stepping up beside him, and he turned to keep walking, the two of them walking side by side. She offered him the loaf of bread. “Like I said, Raven’s pragmatic. You’re strong, and she respects strength. It was a predictable guess.”</p><p>“Thank you, I think?” Shrugging good-naturedly, Shina tore off a small chunk of bread to munch on as they walked. “Did she send you to spy on us?”</p><p>Lexica shook her head, the same casual and playful look on her face, and it had her eyes sparkling with mischief and curiosity as she turned to face him, having to walk sideways to keep up with him as she did so.</p><p>“I came on my own. Wanted to get a better look at you.”</p><p>“Well you met Chrystal last night.”</p><p>“I said get a better look at <em> you. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Raising his eyebrows amusedly, he gestured up and down himself a few times, the movement causing Lexica’s eyes to follow his hand, and he shrugged with a smile.</p><p>“Well, here I am.”</p><p>“Here you are…” Her eyes glimmered for a few more moments before her expression turned strangely serious, and she stared into his eyes as if looking for something, before tilting her head and humming in curiosity. “And I’ve never encountered someone quite like you before. Consider me curious.”</p><p>“Someone like me, huh. I’m flattered. I think.”</p><p> </p><p>When he finished, Lexica looked at him expectedly, as if waiting for him to continue talking, but he didn’t, instead looking forwards again as they walked an aimless path through the city streets, the bustle of the midday business going on around them. While they earned a few looks, eyes going either to Shina’s sword or to Lexica’s demeanor and outfit, nobody was bothering them.</p><p>About ten seconds after he’d continued walking, Lexica huffed and almost gave a whine, narrowing her eyes at him. “That’s not fair. You were meant to ask ‘what do you mean ‘someone like me’?, and I could give my cryptic answer to keep my interest compelling to you. I’m trying to flirt while also having an objective, here”</p><p>“Well you’re doing wonderfully so far.” Shina gave her a smirk which made it clear he’d known exactly what she was doing, and her eyes widened in mock-offense before she scoffed and looked forward again as well, finishing her bread. Glancing over at her, he gave a grin when she glared at him out of the corner of her eye. “Alright, I’ll bite. What do you mean someone like me?”</p><p>“Thank you, what’s the point in planning out conversations in advance that you come out on top of, if the person goes off the script they have no idea you wrote for them.” Giving him a wink when he laughed, Lexica put her hands in her own pockets as they walked, the smile fading from her face as her eyes went serious and curious again. “You resisted my Semblance. That’s never happened before, even Raven feels it.”</p><p>“Didn’t seem like she did.”</p><p>“She’s used to that sort of thing enough that she can push through it. The woman’s had a life. I can affect her properly if I focus on her and her alone. But it just slid off you.” Narrowing her eyes at him in deepened curiosity, she scrunched up her mouth in thought. “Definitely not something I’m used to.”</p><p> </p><p>Tilting his own head to think over it, Shina hummed in interest to himself as he mulled. While he’d definitely felt <em> something </em>trying to slow him down and drain his focus and willpower, it was as if the First Cut provided a filter. Shaking his head in thought, she frowned.</p><p>“It just...bounced off my own Semblance, I think.”</p><p>“It didn’t bounce. I could feel it soaking into you, it was just far slower.” Raising her eyebrows and giving a shrug, Lexica made another curious hum. “But, I <em> was </em>doing it in a radius, and I was quite a distance from you. You couldn’t have gotten a weaker dose if we tried.”</p><p>“You just have the ability of an Apathy, right? Chrystal mentioned.”</p><p>“That’s the easiest way to describe it, yeah. It’s a simplification, but the best comparison.” Frowning, Lexica took a hand from her pocket to brush a few loose strands of hair from her forehead, and Shina’s eyes were drawn to the movement. When she caught him looking, she smiled. “Meanwhile you’re just <em> interesting. </em>”</p><p>“So you’ve mentioned.”</p><p>“No, no I don’t believe I have. Saying you had my interest, and that you’re interesting, are very different things. I’ve had an interest in boring people before.” Giving him a playful smile, her eyebrows raised, she tapped her cheek with her fingertip playfully.</p><p> </p><p>Pausing in his walk, Shina stared at her a mixture of bewildered and fascinated, an increasingly amused smile breaking out on his own face that had her eyes sparkle again when she saw it. He shook his head in bemusement.</p><p>“So where did Raven find someone like <em> you? </em>”</p><p>Lexica shrugged, flicking an eyebrow up for a moment cheekily and playfully as she kept walking, stepping past him and spinning so she was facing him from in front. “Oh I was around. Why? You saying I’m interesting enough she <em> must </em>have handpicked me too? That’s very sweet.”</p><p>When he wasn’t sure how to even respond to that, the bewilderment on his face must have increased without his meaning to, because Lexica laughed with a beautifully musical laugh and grinned at him knowingly.</p><p>“Oooh, you’re not used to being out-charmed, are you?”</p><p>Narrowing his eyes, Shina raised his own eyebrows as he started walking again. “I haven’t actually <em> been </em>trying to charm you.”</p><p>“I’ve noticed. Otherwise I suspect I <em> would </em>be in trouble.” Shrugging playfully again, Lexica turned on her heel elegantly and kept walking.</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a few more moments, Shina shook his head in a mixture of amusement and resignation, before starting to walk again, catching up to her slow pace easily enough, where they fell in stride next to each other once more. Lexica was looking ahead of them with a casual expression on her face, completely relaxed, at ease despite what she was and where.</p><p>It had him curious, and he tilted his head when he glanced at her.</p><p>“You seem remarkably relaxed around someone whose job it is to either arrest or kill someone like yourself.”</p><p>“Boy you really are not trying to charm, are you.” Her voice was playful, but Shina could see the shadow that briefly flickered over her eyes.</p><p>“You know what I mean.”</p><p>Surprisingly, Lexica sighed, and the playful expression faded from her face as she let the topic properly start instead of trying to brush it off again. “Yeah, I know.”</p><p> </p><p>When she seemed to sink into thought, clearly trying to word her answer, Shina let her, and looked forward again as they kept walking, noticing they had almost reached the edge of the city and would be entering the treeline if they didn’t turn. It wasn’t the direction of the camp, so Shina didn’t feel any particular caution about staying out of privacy and quiet of the trees, and Lexica wasn’t making any active effort to divert them away from it.</p><p>But then again, she lived in the trees. Peaceful and casual trips into towns were surely a rarity, which had Shina frown again when he considered it. The tribe had a presence in Ywitawa, but instead of seeming to scout it out in preparation to attack it they instead had a tavern here, and were comfortable enough to set up a fighting ring.</p><p>Ywitawa was safe from them.</p><p>He was brought out of his musings when Lexica finally answered, her voice serious and almost somber, and she didn’t look over at him when she spoke.</p><p>“Most of the people in the tribe were born in it. Their parents were in it, their grandparents, so on. Sure, plenty of people join it willingly. Enough that the bloodlines of the legacy family members actually branch out and don’t become a straight line, you know what I mean? But for the most part, they’re born in it. Raised in that life. Or, they join it willingly as adults, so they’re enthusiastic about that sort of life as well.”</p><p>“Which were you?”</p><p>“Neither. I don’t really want to get into it, but I wasn’t born in it, nor did I openly make the conscious choice to join it. I’m <em> not </em>getting into it. My point is, both of those paths lead to animosity towards Huntsmen. You’re all either enemies, or you’re simply obstacles. Or you’re...just plain looked down upon. But since I’m from neither of those paths...”</p><p>Glancing over at her with a curious frown, Shina noted the serious and guarded expression on her face. Without her normal playfulness, Lexica’s face lost none of her natural beauty, but it made her look older. There was a maturity in the sharp angles of her face and the strong shields behind her eyes.</p><p>When she didn’t continue, but instead because she seemingly got lost in thoughts and not because she’d finished what she was going to say, he didn’t put much thought into it before he nudged her with his shoulder to snap her back out of it and bring her back, as if the movement was natural.</p><p>“And which are we, to you?”</p><p>Blinking and coming back, before glancing down at their shoulders where he’d initiated the first physical contact that had been between them, her eyes slowly slid from their shoulders up to his eyes, and a small guarded smile appeared.</p><p>“Obstacles. But...not simple ones.” Her eyes locked onto his, and she stared. A stare which he returned, his eyes only slightly more open than hers. Her voice quietened. “Not simple at all. I don’t think you’re my enemy, Shina.”</p><p>“...no?” Shina’s own voice lowered, and he gave a small smile with the corner of his mouth, one which she returned as she shook her head.</p><p>“No. Even if you don’t join us, even if at the end of the day that’s not the sort of choice the person you are is willing to make...I think in a different life we'd end up very good friends anyway. But just not in this one.”</p><p> </p><p>As she finished her answer, Shina continued the stare all be himself instead of just returning hers, the smile lingering on his lips, and her own smile grew slightly larger as she stared right back.</p><p>“I’ve definitely come to <em> one </em>conclusion…” Shina’s smile grew an inch larger to match hers, his voice still low. “You’re definitely interesting, Lexi.”</p><p>Blinking in surprise at the nickname, Lexica’s composure and playfulness did allow a small blush to come through her shields. After a heartbeat of that sort of vulnerability, she winked. “You know it. Now, that bread wasn’t enough, so...lunch?”</p><p> </p><p>Thinking over it for a moment, taking in the more serious and genuine expression on her face even though the playful glimmer was present in her eyes, Shina smiled and gave a simple nod.</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Far enough out of the city that he knew the loud sounds wouldn’t disturb anyone, even if they were heard at all, Kylar trained as he thought, just as he always did. Drawing in dust and allowing the different emotions and mentalities of it to influence his mind always helped him think, helped him approach problems from every perspective and point of view.</p><p>It was why he <em> was </em> able to understand why Shina might be tempted by the offer he’d been given.<br/>But that didn’t change the fact it was the wrong choice to make.</p><p>Maybe once upon a time Raven had been one of the fighters against the darkness, like how SKTC now were, but those days were clearly gone. Something had happened to make her walk away from that life and return to pillaging and burning and mass murder. It didn’t matter how powerful she was, in fact that just made her more of a threat.</p><p>Raven was the Maiden? Fine. She was hidden out in the forest, surrounded by her people, who were all seasoned and blooded warriors.</p><p>She practically had a small army of her own. Even if Salem found her, it’d be a bitch to deal with her, and Raven didn’t seem like the sort of person to let herself get captured. Which meant Salem would have to kill her, and the Maiden powers would pass on, and Salem would have to go looking for them again.</p><p>That would buy them time. Maybe <em> months. </em>And they could use that time to help prepare things in Haven. Ruby and her friends were already on their way, and they could also keep in mind they already had potential allies in the city in team LAVA, if the four girls were still willing to fight. And considering he’d met them, he’d picked up enough from them that he was willing to make the safe assumption they would be.</p><p>Maybe his parents would have advised against the idea of telling anyone else about the secret, but they weren’t exactly here right now.</p><p> </p><p>Drawing in some earth, air, and fire dust, he crushed the earth in his aura before mixing it finely with the air, and released a torrent of light dust at a nearby rock before sliding the fire into the sequence, and the torrent of dust erupted into flame, a flamethrower that drained far less aura than if he’d forced one of pure fire dust.</p><p>Satisfied at the results as he figured out how to make earth and air dust work together, at least in one configuration, he wiped his hands on his pants and sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.</p><p>There was no denying that his alchemy was growing more powerful, and his aura reserves were growing larger at an impressive rate. God knows he’d been training ruthlessly enough that neither fact should have been surprising.</p><p>But some dusts were still beyond him. Namely gravity and hardlight.</p><p>They were still hard to control, and impossible to transmute. Frankly he wasn’t even sure where to <em> start </em>on the second problem.</p><p>Sighing again and sinking down to sit on a nearby log, he opened his eyes and looked around himself with his Dust Sight as powerful as he could enhance it to be, channeling a steady stream of aura to his eyes just like Tacita had helped guide him how to do. Everything glowed in his sight in varying degrees of intensity, everything mixed together in different combinations and varying levels of purity.</p><p>Glancing around at the trees, he casually spun a chamber of his staff and drew in some of the ice and air dusts he’d transmuted recently, holding it in his aura and brushing away the impurities so that a workable concentration of both energies remained, before glancing up into the branches of one of the nearby trees and scowling, raising his hands and casually firing a spike of ice into the branch just below where the large raven was perched watching him.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you still have aura in bird form?”</p><p>The raven squawked, clearly in amusement, before dropping from the branch and changing form halfway to the ground, Raven landing easily on her feet. Putting her hand on her hip, she looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk in the corner of her mouth.</p><p>“You’re a lot more powerful than your father ever was, already. I must say I’m impressed.”</p><p>Not answering at first, Kylar went back to spinning the compartments of his staff and drawing in dust to practice with.</p><p>“Why watch me?”</p><p>“To see if you brood just like he did.” Raven casually leaned against a nearby tree and crossed her arms, her face <em> utterly </em>patronising in its smirk. “You do. At least you don’t talk to yourself. I take it Shina caught you up?”</p><p>“He did.”</p><p>“And from the brooding, you clearly failed to talk him out of it.”</p><p> </p><p>Shooting her a glare which didn’t even make her twitch, Kylar brought some lightning to his fingers to continue to fire combinations at the rock across the small clearing, the crackling of it once again not even bothering the relaxed Raven.</p><p>“The conversation is ongoing. I’ll talk him around. You’re <em> not </em>getting your hands on him. I don’t care what you offered.”</p><p>“Don’t be stubborn, boy. If you’re as smart as you act like you are, you know it could be the best option for him.”</p><p>“Just like your protection and guidance was the best option for Rowena?” Shooting her an angry look, Kylar was satisfied when Raven briefly narrowed her eyes. “Because that ended well for her.”</p><p>Tapping her fingers on her bicep, Raven clicked her tongue. “Rowena was weak. And the world she was brought into breaks the weak, and so she broke.”</p><p>“Survival of the fittest, huh?”</p><p>“You’ve been brought into the truth of the world too, so don’t deny that you can see that’s how this works. The weak didn’t get out of Beacon.”</p><p>“<em> Plenty </em>did, because others helped them.”</p><p>“And look at the lives that effort cost.” Raven scoffed, shaking her head in disdainful judgement. “A waste.”</p><p>“Your daughter didn’t think so.”</p><p>“Yang…” Raven ground her jaw for a moment in thought, her red eyes narrowing in frustration at her daughter being brought up. “...is too much like her idiot of a father. She paid for it.”</p><p> </p><p>Pausing for a moment in thought, Kylar’s relentless glare gradually turned into a frown as he pondered Taiyang, and then Qrow, and then Raven herself. Team STRQ had been legends, his father had spoken about them a fair bit and had no insecurity about admitting that STRQ had been far stronger than BLAK had been, so how had the three surviving members of the team end up the way they did?</p><p>“Why did you leave?”</p><p> </p><p>At his question, Raven raised an eyebrow at the change in topic, and she gave a simple look of raising her eyebrows. “Because it was a losing battle and Ozpin knew it, he just refused to admit it to any of us. There is no winning, only surviving. So I returned to lead my people to survive.”</p><p>“You really think we can’t win?...” Kylar’s expression turned into a judgemental glare, his brow furrowed and even a small smile in the corner of his mouth.</p><p>“You’re still new at this. You don’t know what you’ve decided to throw yourself up against.”</p><p>“We fought at Beacon.”</p><p>“Beacon was <em> amateur </em> work compared to what she’s capable of. She’s been tearing down kingdoms over and over again for centuries. Beacon was sloppy in comparison.” Raven snarked, shaking her head at him. “You don’t grasp it yet. In case you haven’t noticed, those of us that <em> did </em>end up realising it all ended up leaving. Even your parents, as stubborn as they were. Though it took them losing two teammates for them to finally wake them up.”</p><p>“...I’m not my parents.” Looking away from Raven again, Kylar went back to his training, the rock he was using as his target beginning to crumble and crack in force.</p><p>“If that’s what this stubbornness is about, refusing to surrender until the fight is won unlike what your parents did, then your friends are going to die for it.” Shrugging casually, Raven kicked off from the tree and stretched her shoulders. “Just because you’re willing to give into weak motivations, to be stubborn and prideful, doesn’t mean your friends deserve to die for it.”</p><p>“It isn’t about that.” Kylar turned to face her again, his eyes set into an angry glare. “I just won’t let <em> you </em> sink claws into him. Into any of us. I’ve seen the ruins you leave in your wake. The people you kill. I won’t let my friend think his life would be better if he was in the grip of someone like that. Someone like <em> you. </em>”</p><p>“This mindset of having to save your friend from his own decisions <em> is </em> purely about pride and stubbornness.” Scoffing, Raven turned away, clearly giving up on him, before spinning and drawing her sword in the same movement and tearing open one of her portals, Kylar’s eyes widening at the sight as Raven looked over her shoulder at him. “I can make Shina strong enough to survive himself, and <em> thrive </em> in the world his powers put him in. If you decide the better option is <em> you </em> one day having to have the strength to potentially kill him because you failed him...well, that makes your priorities clear to you, doesn’t it? <em> Pride </em> ...you’re <em> just </em>like your father was, before Zara was murdered.”</p><p> </p><p>Shaking her head in what almost came across as pity as well as just judgement, Raven stepped into her portal and vanished away, leaving Kylar standing and staring at where she’d been only a moment earlier.</p><p>Drumming his fingers on his staff, Kylar snarled in dark frustration before dedicating the rest of his afternoon to destroying as many rocks and trees as possible.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Yang was better off for your absence, you cold-hearted bitch.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>It was late in the evening when Tacita finally had to take a break from the book. Having flipped through to the final third to try and find something, <em> anything </em>, about what might be happening to Shina, she had been right in her earlier prediction that the book would grow denser and more cryptic over time.</p><p>By the final third, Kaskol had been almost an entirely different woman than she had been at the start. The girl was gone, burdened and flat-out traumatised by the secrets and truths she’d been forced to discover in her time working for Ozpin and going out into the world.</p><p> </p><p>The rare types of Grimm she’d documented, old texts and clues in long-forgotten ruins they’d stumbled across, the clues her own mind put together to reveal things to her, slip-ups Ozpin had during meetings when he spoke near her, everything compounded together with a growing fervor and obsession with her and her brother’s theory about the secret two aspects of humanity.</p><p>Over time they’d grown less certain that those aspects possessed <em> relics </em>as such, the Brother Of Light would never have allowed that, but the Brother Of Darkness might have been able to give his two other aspects to humanity on the sly. Then it had become about tracking down any signs they could that might indicate what those two things were.</p><p>The team had developed an <em> obsession </em>with old ruins, and Kaskol’s Semblance giving them the knack of stumbling across them.</p><p>As far as Tacita could tell, the more secrets she compounded into the one place and memorised, the stronger her Semblance itself had grown. The more she filled the book, the stronger she’d gotten, which led to having to update the book more often, and it snowballed from there.</p><p> </p><p>Putting the book to the side, Tacita hugged her legs to her chest on the bed and closed her eyes, resting her forehead on her knees and taking a deep breath to let it out slowly. If she took Kaskol’s word as truth, which she had no reason not to since Kaskol only recorded secrets and not rumors, then Ozpin had been hiding so much, so many nuanced little details. His age, the fact he’d used the relics in the past, in fact Kaskol had managed to find out pretty easily what the relics actually did in the first place.</p><p>While Tacita could admit she was interested in the Lamp Of Knowledge, she wouldn’t know what to ask it even if she somehow got her hands on it. There were too many questions, and none of the potential answers would be satisfying. Some questions you don’t want answered so much as you just want to be rid of them.</p><p>Knocking her forehead on her knee lightly a few times in thought, Tacita opened her eyes and peered at the book out of the corner of her physical vision and not her Semblance.</p><p> </p><p>At least her hope had been correct that there would be details about the Kamisari Semblance, but none of them were good. From what Kaskol had deduced from Brex, the Cuts were psychologically corrosive, the higher cuts that were reached progressively gave stronger compulsions to keep using them. By the time Brex had reached the eighth, he had to actively strain every moment of his life not to slip into it, and the toll it had taken on his mental and emotional health had been devastating.</p><p>But with the sheer power the Cuts enabled, it had been a price they’d had to pay more often than any of them had been proud of.</p><p>Kaskol had searched for answers to try and help her best friend, and came up with a few things in her study of Semblances and auras. Relations between auras and emotions, mental states, nothing that Tacita and Kylar hadn’t discovered through their own research and introspection.</p><p>Nothing that might help Shina learn better control and focus.</p><p>And if he didn’t learn focus at the same rate his Cuts progressed, he wouldn’t last.</p><p> </p><p>Tapping her head on her knees again, Tacita resigned to the haunting truth;</p><p>The best way to keep Shina sane and alive, would be if he stayed.</p><p>But Tacita herself wouldn’t be able to mentally survive being forced to watch the sort of things those people did day to day.</p><p>It was an impossible decision.</p><p>Even though she knew what she wanted to do.</p><p> </p><p>Reaching over to the book, she sat up and pulled it back onto her lap, flicking through the last third until she found the large and heavily detailed section on all the clues they’d put together about the location of possibly the oldest surviving ruins from what Kaskol referred to as ‘the old times’, even though not even BLLD themselves had found much to say just what those old times entailed.</p><p>But they were certain that there was a ruin in Mistral, somewhere that no-one would ever accidentally stumble across it, or even really be able to reach unless you had the right Semblance due to where they believed it was.</p><p>The mountain that the city of Haven was built on, was entirely hollowed out once you went deep enough. The caverns were supposedly massive, and plunged and wound <em> deep </em>beneath the earth, below even the bottom of the mountain.</p><p>The vault containing the Relic Of Knowledge was below the Academy, within the highest of the large caverns, but it was possible to go <em> far </em>deeper, with a large network of caves winding through the walls and the cavern floor.</p><p> </p><p>And BLLD had been certain that the right ruins would be <em> somewhere </em>down there. Depictions and references to ‘depths’ and ‘darkness’ and ‘the heart of the mountain’ they had come across in engravings in ancient caves, and murals in other old ruins. All alluding to what was seemingly a religious site of some description.</p><p> </p><p>They had a theory about the other possible ruins as well, but it mentioned the Deep Freeze, a region of the Atlesian frosts cold enough to kill anyone unprotected in seconds, and even those with aura would perish quickly unless they escaped the air temperature. Nothing survived there, and <em> that </em>was something that Kaskol had been intrigued by.</p><p>She figured it would be the perfect location for a shrine to the Brother Of Darkness.</p><p>It would have just been a matter of finding it.</p><p>But their time in Atlas had been towards the end of their journey alive. They had all been growing tired, and beaten down, and they had ended up calling off their search to return to the warmer and safer climate of Mistral.</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, Tacita put the book aside while keeping it open on the right pages, before swinging off the bed just enough she could grab her bag and ruffle around inside of it, before grabbing out the books and pages Rowena had been working through on her last day. Rowena had been studying the Mistral caverns as well.</p><p>And if she’d possessed the Compendium as well, and had plenty of years to read the entire thing, Tacita wouldn’t have been surprised if it had caught the interest of the country’s Maiden.</p><p>Grabbing Rowena’s notes, Tacita flopped back down onto the bed and placed them next to the compendium, and then proceeded to spend the next hour cross-referencing, eventually grabbing her own pen to make alterations and add additional notes to Rowena’s unfinished work.</p><p><em> This </em>was the sort of work Tacita had always been good at. It had been her role while on missions for a reason, and she hummed to herself as she worked, enjoying using that part of her brain for the first time in a while.</p><p>Pieces of paper filled with additional notes, to a point she ended up having to grab more blank ones, ripping them out of one of her own notebooks to fill out.</p><p> </p><p>Another hour later she was looking down at a surprisingly detailed layout of the Haven caverns, the best she was capable of coming up with using the information at her disposal, she casually tossed her pen down onto the papers and rubbed her eyes.</p><p>There was no way of knowing <em> just </em>how deep below the earth they went, but unsurprisingly Kaskol had found enough references and clues in her years she was able to put together a basic idea, that Tacita was then able to cross-reference with Rowena’s notes and the book Rowena had been using on the history of Haven, and then put it all together.</p><p>Looking down at the eight pages of her finished work, Tacita tapped them with her fingertips before giving both the Compendium and Rowena’s notes an almost sad smile.</p><p> </p><p>“A bit late, but...I hope I did it justice for you both.”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes and rubbing them tiredly, she stood up from the bed and stretched as many muscles as she could after being cramped and working for so long, before flopping back onto the bed, staring up at the roof. Taking the Compendium from where it was next to her, she placed it on her lap and tapped the cover with her fingers, finding a strange comfort in having it close.</p><p>When Ozpin reincarnated, and if they ever encountered him again, which was very likely, Tacita had enough questions for the man he might just die of old age before she was done. And she knew the others were similar, except it was likely that either Shina or Chrystal would just kill him all over again.</p><p>She couldn’t particularly blame them.</p><p>Hell, her fondness towards Kylar’s parents had taken quite the hit as well.</p><p> </p><p>What if it was true? What if there were two more?<br/>Even if not relics (though she wasn’t so willing to discard that theory, Kaskol hadn’t been either), then at the very least knowing the two other aspects might give them an edge, might be another clue that could lead them towards a solution.</p><p>There was no way of knowing, unless they followed the thread through to its end.</p><p>Unless they finished the work BLLD had bled and suffered to try and do, thinking it was important enough to sacrifice their sanity to try and accomplish.</p><p>And even though she hadn’t read much of the book, Tacita trusted Kaskol, both her mind and her intentions.</p><p> </p><p>It meant she’d found the answer to the impossible choice.</p><p>And the others were going to hate it.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Morning came.</p><p> </p><p>The four of them gathered in Kylar and Tacita’s room yet again, each of them having only managed a light breakfast, though Tacita had barely managed to get any food down at all knowing what was coming for her. They took up the exact same places they’d taken up yesterday, and waited for <em> someone </em>to start, none of them wanting to be the one to break the silence and begin.</p><p> </p><p>So Shina did.</p><p> </p><p>“Has everyone come to a decision?...”</p><p> </p><p>Everyone nodded, Kylar twitching nervously while Tacita was staring down at the floor, meanwhile Chrystal was simply sitting back against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. She’d come to her decision yesterday.</p><p>Whatever Shina decided, she would follow him.</p><p>He was her brother in all but blood. Her place was with him.</p><p>That was the end of the conversation, for her mind.</p><p> </p><p>Shina took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, running a hand over his face and through his hair as he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we should stay. I’m too dangerous to be around a large civilian population, especially during another large scale battle. Not only that, but I need to get stronger anyway, and there’s only so much higher I can climb on my own. If we take the offer, Raven can help, and then we just leave when we’re satisfied. We’re not bound to her forever. I need her help.”</p><p> </p><p>The time for true debate was over, this was a vote, so even though Kylar twitched violently he remained silent until it was his turn to cast his vote.</p><p>And it was his turn.</p><p> </p><p>“No. Our place is at Haven. We’ll be back in an Academy, a place specialising in helping Huntsmen master dangerous Semblances. We’d be able to help protect the vault <em> and </em>safeguard you at the same time. And it would keep us out of Raven’s clutches. That woman is a heartless poison who only wants you for your strength. Don’t mistake her curiosity for compassion or sympathy. So, no. We have work to do at Haven.”</p><p>Saying his piece, he glanced around at each of them, before pausing when he looked to Tacita and she was still looking down at the floor, her eyes closed as she braced herself for the suggestion she was about to make.</p><p>But in her mind, it was the only solution that helped everyone.</p><p> </p><p>All three of them looked to her, and she took in a deep breath before speaking.</p><p>“Shina stays, Raven can help him. She can help him far more than we can, and she has the power to keep him in check if he loses control, which I doubt Haven is equipped for. But I have to go to Haven, I think I can continue Team BLLD’s work, but it means I need to go to the caves in the mountain. So even if the rest of you stay, I have to head there.”</p><p>“Split up???” Chrystal sat up with an alarmed jolt even as the others looked at Tacita in shock. Chrystal’s voice came out almost strangled. “Are you <em> crazy? </em>”</p><p>“I can get to Haven easily enough and keep myself safe. During the day my Semblance protects me from ambushes, and at night my Astral Projection means I can keep watch over my own body. Haven is less than a month’s travel remaining on the roads.” Tacita looked around at each of them with determined eyes. “There’s every chance that there are ruins in the caves that hold the final answers Kaskol needed, it could either confirm or disprove the existence of the two Dark aspects, and further than that confirm or disprove the existence of two more relics. The sooner we can get that answer, the better.”</p><p>“But you think I should stay behind with Raven as well.” Shina frowned, his eyes a mixture of anxious but also thoughtful. “You’re basically suggesting we do <em> both. </em>”</p><p>“Yes. I am. It’s the best way.”</p><p> </p><p>Tacita said it with such determination and certainty that the other three had no idea what to say, or how to reply at all, each of them sitting back and sinking into thought about it. The minutes passed, and each of them were aware of how little time they had left to come to a decision.</p><p>Finishing his thoughts first, Kylar slowly nodded, letting out a breath.</p><p>“I don’t like it, at all, because I <em> don’t </em>want Shina anywhere near that bitch, but...it works. But I’m going to Haven as well, I’m not letting you travel the roads alone, not a chance.” Kylar turned to Tacita, who almost looked to object until she saw the fiercely protective and determined look in his eyes, and she immediately melted into gratitude.</p><p>“...okay.” She nodded, before looking over to Shina, who was still thinking.</p><p>“You’ll both be in obscene amounts of danger.” Looking up at the two of them, Shina’s eyes were in full Leader Mask mode, but they couldn’t hide the concern. The anxiety. “It might only be just under a month left, but that’s still a long way for three people to go alone.”</p><p>“Two.”</p><p>Shina glanced over to where Chrystal was simply looking at him with a raised eyebrow, and the conversation didn’t even need to happen before Shina gave her a small smile and a nod.</p><p>“Two. Which is actually even worse.”</p><p>Sighing, Tacita gave him a grim smile. “We’re all going to be in danger no matter which of the three options we do.”</p><p> </p><p>The room was completely and utterly silent as the four of them looked around at each other. The decision was made, and they all knew it, but despite it being the best plan none of them really liked it. They had always had their differences, but the thought of splitting up…<br/>It felt wrong, after all this time. They worked well together, they played off of each other well, so well in fact that their mission success rate had been through the roof.</p><p>But...the world was a darker place now, and required more dangerous and painful decisions and sacrifices.</p><p>Even if it meant the possibility that they might never see each other again, if the plan went wrong.</p><p> </p><p>“The moment I’m satisfied that I’m in control, Chrystal and I will head straight for Haven to catch up.” Shina spoke firmly, nodding slowly as he processed their decision, which none of the others looked particularly eager to do.</p><p> </p><p>Kylar quietly checked his scroll, and thinned his lips at the time. It was a while of a walk from town to Raven’s camp, and Shina and Chrystal had to get there before noon.</p><p>They were out of time.</p><p> </p><p>“You two have to leave soon, to make it. And Tacita and I are burning daylight.”</p><p>“So…” Chrystal closed her eyes and rested the back of her head against the wall. “We’re doing this.”</p><p> </p><p>Shina hopped to his feet first, leading by example as he always did, and it motivated the others to get up as well, Kylar and Tacita grabbing their bags, having already packed to leave regardless of whatever decision was made.</p><p>The two pairs looked at each other silently for a moment, before Shina stepped forward and pulled Tacita into a tight hug, Chrystal doing the same to Kylar. No words were spoken as the hugs then switched, Shina giving Kylar a supportive squeeze before stepping back and putting his hand on the other man’s shoulder.</p><p>“We’ll catch up. Meet up with team LAVA if you can and bring them in on it if you think we can trust them.”</p><p>“I will. The more the merrier, right?” Kylar nodded, looking between Shina and Chrystal with a grim expression. “Don’t do anything stupid, you two. Stay out of their work, focus on training, and catch up as quickly as you can.”</p><p>Tacita pressed a quick kiss to Shina’s cheek, placing her hand gently on his other one for a moment and giving him a soft look. She’d read the Compendium, she knew what was coming for him, and she tried to pour as much support and reassurance and confidence into her eyes as she could as she looked at him.</p><p>It must have been enough, because he pulled her close again and pressed a kiss to her cheek as well.</p><p>“Be careful in those caves. Nobody knows what’s down there.”</p><p>“That’s the hope of what might just save us.” She whispered in agreement, nodding before releasing him and stepping back.</p><p> </p><p>With nothing really more to say, the magnitude of their decision escaping them, all four of them moved out of the room, Shina and Chrystal diverting to their own rooms to grab their belongings while Kylar and Tacita silently made their way downstairs.</p><p>As Kylar and Tacita stepped out into the sunlight, they looked at each other silently before taking each others hand and giving it a tight squeeze, Tacita’s eyes wet and her entire body humming with fear and loss even as she squared her shoulders and took the first step, the two of them turning and heading in the direction of the road leading out of the city and towards Haven.</p><p>By the time Shina and Chrystal stepped out of the tavern, the other two were gone, already on the road towards the capital. The two siblings looked at each other, each of them handling it slightly better, and Chrystal gave a morose Shina a reassuring smile, nudging his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“They’ll be okay. They’re stubborn. We’ll see them again, we’ve just got to get you in top shape first.”</p><p>“You don’t have to come with me.”</p><p>“Yeah I do. You’re useless without me anyway.” Chrystal grinned, before starting the way towards the camp, Shina rolling his eyes and following behind with the lump in his throat having lightened slightly.</p><p> </p><p>Chrystal was right. There was honestly no way he’d be able to do this without her.</p><p> </p><p>The pair made their way through the forest quietly, moving quickly but not at anything above a jog. No Grimm or any threats bothered them, likely all cleared out by the bandits who would keep the forest around their camp clear.</p><p>Eventually, after a silent trip, the palisade of the camp came into view, the large gate shut and guarded.</p><p>Neither of them were surprised to see Lexica waiting, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed in a doze, clearly waiting to see if they decided to stay or go. At the sound of their approach, she opened her eyes and looked over at them, frowning for a moment as she noticed the absence of Kylar and Tacita before understanding bloomed over her face and she nodded, her eyes sympathetic as she banged a fist on the gate a couple of times for it to be opened up.</p><p>Kicking off the wall as they got close, she walked over to join them.</p><p>“You two okay? I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You don’t need to apologise. It was the right decision.” Shina gave her a confident look, before sighing. “...we hope.”</p><p> </p><p>Unsure what else to say, Lexica simply nodded and turned to lead them through the camp yet again. Once again they attracted attention, but rumors of what their situation was had clearly travelled, with the possibility of new members meaning they looked at the pair with intrigue rather than outright suspicion. Huntsmen going rogue and joining bandit tribes wasn’t an uncommon thing, and the fact the party had split up actually made it less suspicious than if an entire Huntsman team had suddenly decided to go bandit.</p><p>So they attracted constant looks, and quiet murmurs broke out between groups as the trio walked their way straight through to camp towards Raven’s tent, pausing in the small clearing just in front of the wooden platform her tent was erected on. Lexica glanced at the two of them for them to stay there, before hopping up onto the platform herself and ducking into the flaps of the tent.</p><p> </p><p>A few moments later, Raven emerged, her mask on, and flanked by Vernal and Lexica on either side of her.</p><p>Raven regarded Shina and Chrystal silently for a few moments, staring at them and scrutinising them, before gracefully dropping down from the platform and landing in front of them. Reaching up, she removed her mask slowly and gave them both piercing and stern looks.</p><p>“So, this is your decision? I assume your teammates have run along to Haven.”</p><p>“Yes.” Shina nodded, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “It’s the two of us.”</p><p> </p><p>Raven hummed in curiosity, her eyes flicking to Chrystal and summing her up. “I’m surprised <em> you’re </em>here, given your opinion of me.”</p><p>“...my opinion of you doesn’t matter. Where Shina goes, I go.” Chrystal merely gave a slight shrug, completely unintimidated, and the corner of Raven’s mouth ticked in approval for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>Regarding the two of them for another moment, Raven revelled in the fact almost her entire tribe had gathered and were watching, plenty of them with their weapons in hand in case things between her and Shina resorted to violence yet again, but this time for real.</p><p>But for the most part, they simply watched in excited anticipation at the idea of fresh meat, especially two young Huntsmen.</p><p> </p><p>Humming in approval, Raven looked to Shina and once again extended her arm, just like she had the day before.</p><p>“Don't choose this lightly. But you have my word on everything I promised.”</p><p> </p><p>Shina and Chrystal glanced at each other one last time, and even though Chrystal’s expression was completely sealed by her black ice, she gave Shina a small confident nod, everything in the movement reaffirming what she’d always told him.</p><p>Where he went, she went. It was up to him.</p><p>Looking back to Raven, Shina extended his arm and grasped hers, gripping it tightly.</p><p>Raven’s eyes flashed in approval, and she let a cold but satisfied smile bloom on her lips.</p><p> </p><p>“Very well then. Let’s get you settled in. And then...we can begin.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And thus ends Team SKTC's section of Noose Of Red Threads!!</p><p>We have a few chapters to go, but we won't be seeing Shina's first training session with Raven until the start of Part 3.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Telise delivers her final twists to Angel's mind.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW; descriptions of surgery, gaslighting, mental conditioning, and a small moment of assault (Telise kisses her).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> “It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible, is to admit it.” - Kreia </em>
</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>When Telise opened the door to the lab containing the restrained Angel the next morning, the girl in question was pallid, sweating, and her eyes were bloodshot from not managing a single moment of sleep. The withdrawals were ruthless and relentless, and each dose only created worse ones afterwards that onset practically immediately, and the girl was showing it.<br/>Some types of distress the mind can’t shut out or compartmentalise, no matter how high the person’s pain tolerance or how organised their mind was.</p><p>Telise had lied yesterday, she didn’t actually think little of the girl’s intelligence at all.</p><p>It had been more than proven. After all, that’s why Telise had been collected to play around with her in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>Stepping into the room and having the door closed behind her, Telise finally got the delirious Angel’s attention, the girl immediately going practically savage in her thrashing and swearing. Raising her eyebrows at the outburst, Telise was <em> very </em>surprised to hear Angel scream and swear threats at her in all four of the planet’s major languages, dipping into Mistralian more than most with a colourful vigor that had Telise internally smiling in amusement. Angel was pulling against the cuffs with enough savage hatred her aura was glowing on her wrists and ankles to hold off damage from the strain and the chance of the metal cutting into her, and the girl’s voice was hoarse from a dry throat even before she started.</p><p>Ignoring the outburst other than her brief pause in the doorway, Telise calmly made her way over to the counter to pour the girl a glass of water, before turning to face her and waiting patiently and calmly, her face clear of any expression as Angel quickly exhausted herself and quietened, breathing in heavy snarls and her dry and red eyes glaring a lethal hatred and anger.</p><p>Once Angel was quiet except for her deep and rapid breathing, Telise stepped over.</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning Angel. How are you feeling this morning?”</p><p>“<b> <em>FUCK </em> </b> you. <em> Tha ftýno to ptóma sou! </em>” Spitting out, Angel snarled again with a few more breaths before calming once again.</p><p>“I shouldn’t be surprised you’re multilingual, plenty of boring days and nights in that little room with any book you requested and access to the internet.” Chuckling in approval, Telise lifted the cup in offering. “Thirsty?”</p><p>“Well <em> you’re </em>certainly smug today.” Angel glared, but the dehydration in her system had her eyes flick to the cup of water with a desperate survival sense of longing, and Telise leant down so Angel could raise her head and sip from it slowly, Telise’s other hand supporting the back of her head and her fingers lightly stroking through Angel’s hair.</p><p>“I suppose you might be right. From all my mother has deduced from the results of Kakra and myself, ego appears to be one of the few impulses and emotions to survive the evolution process. It’s actually all rather interesting.” Telise straightened and turned to place the now empty cup down on the counter, before pausing in thought and tapping her finger on the crystal surface of it in thought. “But I don’t believe that’s what I’m feeling currently. I’m actually rather apprehensive.”</p><p>“Great. Bodes well.” Grumbling, Angel looked back up to the roof, not reacting when Telise turned back around and folded her hands in front of yourself.</p><p>“It’s time. Our Queen has expressed a curiosity to meet you.”</p><p> </p><p>Freezing as her entire system turned to ice, Angel’s breath immediately stopped in her throat, and her eyes widened in horror, before she slowly managed to turn her head to stare at Telise with terrified eyes, scrutinising the woman’s face in desperate hope for any sign of deception on her part. But there wasn’t any, Telise looked completely serious, her face and eyes relaxed as she simply waited for Angel to process.</p><p>“....why?...” Her voice was impossibly small, and so utterly delicate that Telise couldn’t deny the spark it sent through her own mind at the <em> beauty </em>of the tone.</p><p>“It’s not my place to speak for our Queen’s motivations, merely to obey her will. And her will is for me to bring you to her.”</p><p>“...what?”</p><p>Telise stepped back over to the table and slowly reached out to rest her hand on the shackle around Angel’s right wrist. “You’ll be coming with me, to her hall. And even though most of these will be coming off, you’re going to behave.”</p><p> </p><p>Not giving Angel any time to respond, Telise barely needed to flex her fingers for her enhanced strength to snap the chain linking the cuff to the table, and Angel immediately took the opportunity of relief to relax her arm and stretch it, having the freedom of movement to roll her shoulder, wincing as she felt the tight and cramped muscles clear out as her aura worked to soothe them.</p><p>But her eyes flicked to Telise, and even through the fear the flickers of her usual rage and defiance appeared, burning like low coals without their normal inferno, but burning nonetheless.</p><p>“Why should I? I could turn you all to ash the moment I’m out.”</p><p>“Because if you don’t behave. If you try anything, even if it means destroying me, you’ll never get what you crave again.” Telise said simply, stepping around to the other side of the table to break her other arm free. </p><p>When Angel glared at her in a moment of confusion, Telise merely parted her lips slightly and tickled her fangs with the tip of her tongue. A yearning but disgusted shiver immediately went through the girl, who looked away.</p><p>Nodding in satisfaction, Telise moved down to release Angel’s ankles, glancing up into her eyes when she knew that Angel was inevitably going to glance at the Aura Limiters on her wrists and consider the idea, the fingers of her left hand already twitching with the urge to remove the one on her right arm. Seeing she’d been caught in the impulse, Angel immediately put her left arm back down and clenched her hand into a fist, looking away.</p><p>“Good girl.”</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes at the smooth and almost playful way Telise said the words, Angel brought her legs up to her chest one by one as each was released, to stretch her knees and crack the joints for the first time in days. While her arms and neck had been released previously for breakfast, her legs had been bound tightly since her arrival, and she sighed in satisfaction at the relief she found in warming up and stretching the joints.</p><p>With Angel’s arms and legs released, Telise finally stepped up to Angel’s head and slid fingers into her hair, Angel immediately pulling away with a flinch at the intimate gesture, but she was only able to move away so far with her neck still chained to the table. Telise didn’t react to the movement, instead stroking her fingertips lightly down Angel’s face until they rested on the collar, taking her time along her jawline on the way.</p><p>One more simple twist, and the final chain was broken. Angel was free.</p><p> </p><p>“Now, we don’t want you breaking in withdrawals while you meet with our Queen. I wouldn’t put anyone in that state in front of her.” Telise murmured, stroking her fingers back up Angel’s neck until they rested on her jaw, and with her fingers firmly cupping her face she guided Angel to sit up, the girl wincing at the soreness in the movement as muscles in her back and pelvis moved for the first time in days. “But we don’t want you too out of it either. So, maybe just enough to take the edge off for now, and if you’re a good girl and you behave, you can have some properly afterwards.”</p><p>Sitting silently, almost paralysed under the tender touch on her skin, Angel’s hands clenched and unclenched as they rested on the surface on the table on either side of her, her eyes unblinking and staring into Telise’s calm stare. But Telise didn’t move or speak any further, simply staring into Angel’s eyes, waiting.</p><p>Half a minute later, Angel cracked, and she nodded obediently.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“That’s my good girl.”</p><p> </p><p>Shivering at the tone Telise spoke in, this time laced with the same smooth playfulness she’d only partially allowed herself to speak in earlier, Angel looked down and away from Telise’s eyes, ignoring as the woman’s fingers travelled back up to her hair and slid to the back of her head, winding in playfully and taking a grip, tight enough Angel’s eyes widened and her head was forcefully but not painfully jerked up and to the side.</p><p>Telise moved <em> agonisingly </em>slowly as she leant in, her breath washing over Angel’s skin in a way that had the girl squirming under it even as she forced herself to sit obediently, before Telise pressed a soft kiss right onto the pulse point between her jaw and neck, and then another slightly further down, before Angel felt the sting of the woman’s fangs entering her neck.</p><p>It was barely for a moment, but Angel still slumped in relief as the fog washed through her system and stripped away the pain and itch and fever that had been torturing her for hours and hours, and she slumped right into Telise’s arms as the fog washed her muscles free of tension and stress. Telise caught her easily, extracting her fangs as Angel’s weight pushed against her, and she chuckled heartlessly even as she tickled her fingers up Angel’s back in a way that had the girl shiver under the touch, but no longer in disgust as the venom tickled her nerves and made her so sensitive that the slight draft in the room was wonderful on her skin.</p><p>But it was barely a dose at all, just enough to take the edge off, and only a few moments later Angel blinked and came back to herself, immediately pushing away from Telise with a disgusted scowl and looking away.</p><p> </p><p>“On your feet, now. Let’s get you straightened up. You look a mess.”</p><p>Angel huffed, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that Telise honestly found slightly adorable. While Angel wasn’t broken, and Telise had felt from the start that this girl could <em> never </em>be broken, her defiance wasn’t as sharp-edged as it was. “I’ve been chained to a bench for...how long now?”</p><p>“Just over a month. Kakra woke you up three and a half days ago.”</p><p> </p><p>As Angel’s eyes went wide and she began to process just how much time had passed, she didn’t have the mind to resist as Telise pulled her off the bench so she was on her feet, and then positioned her in the center of a clear space so Telise could walk around her and see every angle.<br/>Putting her fingers on her chin in thought as she scrutinised the girl’s appearance, Telise raised an eyebrow. Unlike Kakra, she wasn’t a savage, she had a <em> deep </em>appreciation for style and aesthetics, and actively made an effort to maintain her own appearance. If Kakra was attuned to their mother’s cruelty, Telise was attuned to her cunning and vanity, and it didn’t bother her in the slightest.</p><p>“Stand here, and do not move. I’ll return in a moment.”</p><p> </p><p>Turning on her heel and leaving Angel standing in the laboratory, Telise quickly made her way to the room that had been given to her, and opened her wardrobe. With how easily she passed for a mortal, it had been easy for her to travel through some of the larger towns and smaller cities acquiring clothes without anyone being suspicious of her demeanour, as long as she had kept to herself.</p><p>Humming as she pondered Angel’s shorter height and different features, definitely being more of an ‘Autumn’ where Telise herself was a ‘Winter’, with Angel’s tanned skin and slightly broader stature, Telise plucked up some clothes that <em> might </em>suit her before grabbing a hairbrush from in front of her mirror, and made her way back to the lab.</p><p>This was a test, and she was curious at the results.</p><p>Raising her eyebrow when she saw the laboratory door was slightly bent outwards, she nodded in satisfaction as it opened for her and she stepped inside as Angel was pacing the room nursing bruised knuckles that were healing right before both of their eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“The doors here only open in response to the right people.”</p><p>“Yeah. I noticed.”</p><p>“<em> That </em>was naughty.” Telise narrowed her eyes slightly, and Angel glared right back at her undeterred. A small smile tickled the corner of Telise’s mouth. “But expected. So, I’ll let it slide this time.”</p><p>“I could blast my way out of here at any time, we both know that.”</p><p> </p><p>At the smouldering hostility in Angel’s eyes, Telise merely hummed in her throat out of curiosity and stepped in front of her, the height difference between them finally becoming obvious to them both for the first time at Angel had to actively tilt her head up slightly to meet Telise’s slightly challenging but otherwise completely patient stare.</p><p>Telise reached down and grabbed Angel’s wrist, and before Angel could yank it away Telise pulled it up to gently press Angel’s palm against her chest, her eyes staring down into Angel’s.</p><p>“You could. But you’re in the middle of nowhere, in the birthplace of all Grimm, surrounded by every truy enemy those of your profession have. There are rivers of ichor between here and the closest place you might call safe. You are closer to Atlas than you are to Haven.”</p><p> </p><p>There was no response at first, the two simply staring at each other in the silent challenge as Angel considered her options, the hatred in her eyes sparking as her anger bloomed and they both grew under the surface, swirling together until she reached up with the fingers of her free left hand and placed them on the clasps that held the limiter on her right arm in place, her eyes not breaking from Telise’s as she slowly fiddled with the clasps in consideration.</p><p>But eventually, her left hand dropped away, and she looked away in defeat.</p><p>Nodding resolutely, Telise released her right wrist, before gesturing to the clothes she’d brought in and placed on a nearby counter.</p><p> </p><p>“Get changed please. Then we’ll do something about your hair.”</p><p> </p><p>Telise stepped back and turned away to give the girl privacy, and also to give herself the privacy needed for a small glimmer of cruel satisfaction to enter her eyes. Gods she was enraptured by that endless reservoir of rage and hatred in the girl, it held her together even whenever her willpower wavered.</p><p>She heard the sound of clothes rustling behind her, and waited until it was finished before turning back around.</p><p>Angel’s filthy travel clothes, which she’d been stuck in ever since the fight with Kakra and her subsequent capture, had been replaced with a simple clean outfit, as casual as Telise was willing to allow since she knew that anything more formal would have inspired stubborn resistance. The girl had clearly been dressing for practicality all her life, which wasn’t surprising considering her upbringing, so anything too detailed or ornate would have clashed with her self-image enough she would have challenged it.</p><p>Simple dark pants, a neat dark blue henley that was pulled unexpectedly tight due to Angel’s broader shoulders, and one of Telise’s smaller jackets. It was neater and tidier than her torn and filthy Huntsmen garb, and that was what mattered for the meeting.</p><p>Maybe one day she’d be able to get the girl into something fancier and nicer. She had the toned legs of a heavy-fighter, so fitted pants would suit her wonderfully <em> without </em>drawing attention to her short height like a skirt would…</p><p> </p><p>But those were thoughts and considerations for a later date, so Telise simply nodded at the change and hummed in approval.</p><p>“Good girl. Better?”</p><p>“...yeah.” Angel admitted begrudgingly. It <em> did </em>feel good to be in cleaner clothes. “Wouldn’t mind some sets of fresh underwear though.”</p><p>“That, I can’t provide.” Allowing a small amused smile to break through, Telise twirled her fingers to gesture for her to turn around, grabbing the hairbrush from the counter. “Now let’s <em> try </em>and get something sorted with this hair of yours. You clearly don’t take care of it.”</p><p>“I keep it clean.”</p><p>“That alone, is not enough.” Tutting, Telise ran her fingers through the girl’s shoulder-length dark hair, which would be considered black if Telise’s own midnight black shade wasn’t there to be compared against.</p><p>“Why spend the money and time going any further? It’s just hair.” Crossing her arms in objection to the nagging and the physical contact, Angel scowled as Telise began to run the brush through it in firm but surprisingly delicate strokes.</p><p> </p><p>Not dignifying that with a retort, also unwilling to start that potential argument, Telise instead occupied herself with brushing out the girl’s hair until it was sleek and neater, the strands soft in her fingers, and she smiled to herself when Angel eventually relaxed into the soothing repetition of the touch.</p><p>“You’re a rather pretty girl, you know.”</p><p>Angel tensed, every muscle in her body going rigid, and that said all it needed to for her response even though Telise couldn’t currently see her face. She didn’t pause in her brushing, not changing the motion or the speed at all and simply continuing casually as if they were conducting regular conversation.</p><p>“...thanks, I guess. Not something someone wants to hear from their torturer and captor.”</p><p>“I haven’t been torturing you, I personally think we’ve been having some rather riveting conversations. You’re a very interesting person. And I’ve been far nicer to you than Kakra would be if I’d allowed her to continue visiting.”</p><p>“Is that supposed to make me feel <em> grateful? </em>”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>The simple straightforwardness of Telise’s answer, again spoken with no particular inflection or emphasis, had Angel fall silent, stunned, and she didn’t say another word as Telise finished fixing up her hair. Putting the brush aside, back onto the counter, Telise stepped back and folded her hands in front of herself.</p><p>“Give me a twirl?”</p><p>Sighing and rolling her eyes in annoyed resignation, Angel gave as sarcastic a slow twirl as she could manage, giving Telise a withering look as she did so, and then flopping her arms down by her sides when she was done.</p><p>“Satisfied?”</p><p>“It’s an improvement.” Telise let out a sigh, narrowing her eyes in thought and clicking her tongue as she flicked her eyes up and down the girl again.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, one day they would have to play around and discover her style. There was potential here.</p><p>Angel was no beauty, but...there was potential.</p><p> </p><p>When the way Telise’s eyes roamed over her began to turn almost <em> hungry, </em>Angel looked away, shoving her hands into the pockets of the pants and gritting her teeth as she did her best to swallow the aggression that was desperate for her to just drop her limiters and turn the entire building to ash, even if it took her with it.</p><p>What was it Lillian said sometimes?...</p><p>
  <em> “Evil is fought through sacrifice.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Angel’s eyes sharpened into a glare as she thought of her best friend and partner, the last Angel had seen of her; she'd been broken and defeated on the ground. Their team had paid the price of duty, and <em> Lucy </em>had made the ultimate sacrifice and they’d still lost.</p><p>Feeling the thought ignite the spark inside, her eyes began to burn with vengeful hatred as it began to course through her veins, and only a few moments later her eyes began to glow as her Semblance strained against the limiters, ignited by, and burning through, her rage and hatred.</p><p>Viciously satisfied when Telise seemed to be caught off-guard and actively took a step back, Angel felt the limiters straining but holding as her skin began to glow as if lit from within as her aura rippled and strengthened, the glow bright enough to cast shadows in the room.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s truly nothing but rage and hate in you, is there.”</p><p>At Telise’s words, and the utterly enchanted look on the woman’s face, Angel stepped forward with her fists clenched at her sides, though this time Telise didn’t step back in response, the two of them meeting in the middle of the empty space, though the height different didn’t seem to matter at all as Angel burned like a light.</p><p>“There’s so much more than that. But they certainly help.”</p><p>Even Angel’s voice came out almost with a glow of its own, seeping into her words and even just the sound, and Telise couldn’t help but shake her head in awe, a fixated smile touching the corners of her mouth.</p><p> </p><p>But the limiters held, and as Angel’s aura continued to increase and burn brighter she soon began to wince in pain, before it hurt badly enough she had to clench her eyes shut and look away, every muscle and joint in her body <em> burning </em> as the limiters brutally forced her aura down and compacted it into her body to stop it escaping. The pain reached a point her legs gave out and she dropped, easily caught in Telise’s arms as she fell, but she didn’t have the awareness to push away as the pain <em> burned </em>through her as if she was aflame.</p><p>Gently lowering to her own knees so she could lower Angel comfortably to the ground, Telise held the agonised girl on her lap as she <em> watched </em> Angel’s skin begin crack and smoke as her <em> ‘Obliteration’ </em>was forced to immolate her on the inside with no way of getting out, her own aura turned against her and hurting her at the same speed it was healing her.</p><p>Days of pent up rage and aura strained to finally burn and detonate, but the limiters (both the removable ones, but also the ones surgically implanted that she’d realised Telise had no knowledge of) held firm, working together to create a feedback loop of her own energy, and her screams only came out as croaks and squeaks at it <em> roared </em>through her. Telise wrapped her in her arms protectively, ignoring the pain in her own body from the sheer force that was managing to leak out from Angel and burn into her, knowing it would heal just as fast as it was being done.</p><p>Eventually Angel began to dim, and the soundless screaming and paralysis turned into thrashing and sobbing, the girl unable to resist the instinct to cling, grabbing fistfuls of Telise’s jacket and burrowing her face into the material so her sobbing was muffled. Shuffling the girl’s position, Telise pulled her in slightly closer and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, keeping a watchful eye on her as it subsided.</p><p>Angel eventually calmed as her aura returned to its normal rhythm and flow, the glow vanishing from her eyes and skin as she slowly pushed herself up so she was sitting up properly, and she became aware of the fact she was being held. But she didn’t pull away immediately, instinctively knowing on an unconscious and animal level that she’d found comfort in not being alone, a comfort deprived from her for the better part of a decade.</p><p>So she closed her eyes and let out a sigh, shivers from the aftershocks of pain still going through her body, and each one was answered by Telise running her fingers through her hair, and eventually Telise broke the silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Even with their solution you can’t escape the pain.”</p><p>“There’s never going to be a time I won’t be in pain, Telise.” Angel answered quietly, calling her by her name for the first time.</p><p>“There could be….”</p><p>Telise’s voice was thoughtful, and Angel saw her eyes as she looked off in contemplation, the same expression she got on her face whenever her mind had been ticking over a clue or sign that Angel had given her.</p><p>After a couple of minutes of running her fingers through a shivering and broken Angel’s hair while she thought, Telise came back to the present and gave her a small and encouraging smile.</p><p>“There’s a way to stop it hurting. But, I’d like to see something first.”</p><p>“A memory, like usual?”</p><p>Telise nodded, and she glanced down at the metal limiters bound to Angel’s wrists. “It’s time you showed me the day you got those.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes widening in horror, Angel sat up with a jerk, and her eyes were desperate in their objection. But she was so tired, and in so much pain, and deep down...she’d known it was coming eventually.<br/>Telise had her, and it hadn’t even been what the woman had done that had gotten her.</p><p>So Angel nodded, a despairing and scared tear leaking out of her eye which Telise gently wiped away. “Okay.”</p><p>“I think this is going to be the last one.” Telise’s voice was soaked in the same curiosity she always had when interested in the mystery that was Angel Wince, but there was a touch of softness to her tone as well.</p><p> </p><p>Angel knew that the softness was deceitful, and there wasn’t a shred of genuine compassion or sympathy to it, but a small buried part of herself found a comfort in the sound of it and how it got through her shields. So she sighed, closing her eyes and looking down, twisting her head to bare her neck in preparation as she brought the right memory to the front of her mind for Telise to grab onto and pull them both inside of.</p><p>But Telise surprised her by gently cupping her cheek and guiding her face so she was looking at her again, and she held her stare silently and...tenderly. There wasn’t any compassion, no sympathy or guilt or pity, no softness, but somehow there was tenderness to it all the same. And it was dangerously hypnotic, the serpent locking eyes with the mouse to freeze them in place and prevent them moving or even <em> thinking. </em></p><p>“Oh Angel...everything they’ve done to you…” Telise softly ran her thumb across Angel’s lips lightly, and her powerful and layered stare kept Angel completely hypnotised. “While you’re here with us, you will never be hurt again. I will never hurt you like they all did.”</p><p>“...you <em> have </em>been hurting me.” Angel’s voice was a whisper, as if there was a spell she wasn’t willing to break, and her eyes were slightly vacant as Telise’s eyes stared into hers and held her in place purely through her gaze.</p><p>“No…” Running her thumb over Angel’s lips again, Telise shook her head. “My <em> absence </em>has been hurting you.”</p><p>Before Angel could reply, her eyes still totally at Telise’s mercy as Telise pressed through Angel’s cracked shields purely through the force of her presence, Telise gently held Angel’s face in place as she pressed her lips to hers in a soft kiss. Angel went completely still, her lips unresponsive, but Telise wasn’t forceful as she kissed the girl she’d become truly obsessed with.</p><p>Angel was an awe-inspiring inferno, all things around her turned to ash in the wake of her endless and unmatchable rage and hatred. But humanity had chained her, this being of pure power and destruction. They’d taken a goddess of destruction and passion and locked her in a vault, but they had <em> never </em>managed to break her spirit.</p><p>And now that she had her, Telise was never going to hurt her.</p><p>No. She was going to <em> unleash </em>her.</p><p>For her mother. For her Queen.</p><p>And for Angel herself.</p><p> </p><p>A thrill of electricity went through her when Angel’s lips moved, the girl’s fragility and shakiness finally giving out. While her body might be indestructible, and her passion unmatched, her <em> mind </em> itself hadn’t been so resilient, and Telise hummed in cruel and vicious <em> victory </em>as Angel finally cracked and kissed her back, softly at first but soon pressing against her ever so slightly as Telise drew her into it.</p><p>It had all gone <em> perfectly. </em></p><p>Yesterday she’d already left her fragile. Memories and trauma had been wearing away at her ability to hold herself together already, even though that had simply been a secondary objective next to Telise’s investment in understanding her through those memories, but re-experiencing them from an outside perspective had left her fragile.</p><p>And utterly reminded of how alone she’d been. Imprisoned, tortured, and neglected, but the people who were meant to love her. Instead those people feared her, and in response to their fear they had sealed her away like an untested nuclear device instead of treating her like the scared young girl she’d been.</p><p>Then Telise had left her alone all night, suffering and spasming, leaving her with absolutely nothing except the suffering and the memories that had been brought back up. Gods, the distress and despair she must have been in, the thought alone was almost enough to make Telise moan against Angel’s lips.</p><p>And then she’d come back. Put a giant threat in front of her to put her off-balance, the prospect of meeting Salem, and then break her chains. There was a reason she’d <em> broken </em> them instead of simply <em> unlocking </em>them.</p><p>She had reminded Angel that her whole life she’d been imprisoned and restricted. And then she had broken her out and set her free.</p><p>Then the clothes and hair. Attentiveness and affection.</p><p> </p><p>It had been so easy. Angel was incredibly strong, and most of her was completely unbreakable, but the moment that miniscule crack had been revealed and Telise had been able to slither in…</p><p> </p><p>But the breakdown that had resulted in this?<br/>Telise could <em> never </em> have predicted Angel would still have that rage at her fingertips so easily at the ready.<br/>It was... <em> awe </em>inspiring. This girl was…</p><p>Telise <em> couldn’t </em>contain the growl as she pressed against Angel slightly.</p><p>But as delicious as victory was, and she could <em> smell </em>the distortions in Angel as walls began to give way, she had a job to do.</p><p>So, taking the collar of Angel’s jacket in her hands, she pulled her slightly closer against her before swiftly taking Angel’s bottom lip between her teeth and nipping it, sinking her fangs in ever so slightly but still deep enough that Angel was soon lost in her venom, moaning carnally into her mouth in almost a growl as she was swept away by the narcotic sensations of it, her mind unlocking to Telise’s probing.</p><p> </p><p>Telise brought her Semblance to the surface, and stroked Angel’s mind.</p><p>And they both fell...</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Telise noticed immediately that this memory didn’t feel like the others did. There was something about how it looked, like everything was that little bit clearer but...also more distorted at the same time. Details were crisp but exaggerated, the lighting and shadows didn’t quite match up, it was somehow those two opposites at the same time, a combination of clarity and inconsistency.</p><p>It didn’t take much thinking to figure out why this memory would be a bit more distorted than perhaps any other in Angel’s life.</p><p> </p><p>Despite being a memory, the Atlesian snow and wind was freezing cold, and Telise looked up at the gentle snowflakes drifting down from the perpetually clouded sky above. They were standing on what was clearly a landing pad up in the city of Atlas, seemingly in one of the smaller airports, or a private one, from how limited the traffic was flying in and out at a steady rate.</p><p>Angel was next to her, and her mental visualisation of herself was still in her Huntsmen armour and equipment, though unlike in their previous trips through her memories her clothes were tattered and damaged, no longer immaculate and idealised. While in the waking world she was fragile, cracked almost to breaking point, she currently looked somber and serious, her face in a blank frown as she watched a certain airship arriving from a distance with her hands in her pockets.</p><p> </p><p>“So they actually brought you to Atlas for it. They didn’t just deliver them to you?”</p><p>“It’s a bit more complicated than you’ve been assuming.” Angel’s voice was as dead as her expression, and she took in a deep breath in preparation, her eyes flicking to the doors leading into the nearby administration building as a group of figures emerged.</p><p> </p><p>All three were in military garb, but only one was dressed as if he served in any sort of combat position, the other two clearly either officers or serving some other role. The three men waited patiently as the airship made its last approach, and gently touched down on the closest free landing pad to where the men were waiting just outside of the doors.</p><p>Telise led the way over, Angel just behind her shoulder, so that she could watch and listen in curiosity as the entrance ramp lowered, and an only slighter younger Angel was escorted out.</p><p>The group with her had a few more people than Telise had expected, but she wasn’t surprised to see Angel’s mother Georgia with her, along with two other scientists that had been working on Angel back at Haven. The Angel in this memory couldn’t have been much younger at all, maybe only a year, two at the most.</p><p>They were all outfitted to handle the extreme cold, except for Angel herself, who was dressed in her normal jeans and hoodie, her aura powerful enough to hold the cold at bay on its own. She looked...tired. Heavy. And when Telise glanced over at the older Angel next to her, she had the same expression, though there was an edge of grief and dread in her eyes as well. While she’d grown more used to handling going back into these memories, it still wasn’t easy.</p><p>And this one in particular…</p><p> </p><p>The two groups met each other just outside of the doors into the facility, and the oldest of the three Atlesian men stepped forward and offered his hand to Georgia.</p><p>“Doctor Wince, it’s good to finally meet face to face.”</p><p>“Likewise Major, thank you for making the time.” She took the man’s hand and shook it formally, glancing at Angel next to her. “We appreciate it.”</p><p>“Of course. It’s a unique situation, but we do believe we have a solution. Please, shall we?”</p><p> </p><p>Without much more talk beyond pleasantries as the others all greeted each other, the groups made their way inside, and Angel hadn’t even been addressed, and she herself hadn’t spoken a word, merely following along silently with her hands in her pockets and her expression tired and resigned. Telise and the older Angel slipped into the facility doors just before they closed, and followed along quietly.</p><p>It wasn’t until they were deeper within the facility that the officer glanced down at Angel. “It’s going to be alright, missy. It’ll be done before the end of the day.”</p><p>“Should I apologise for blowing up your facility before or after I do it?” Angel’s eyes barely shifted from their lack of glint as she met his stare, offering a grim smile, and the man thinned his lips.</p><p>“We’ve been working on aura manipulation quite a few years now, even if the procedure doesn’t work we’ll be able to filter the excess energy away before you do any serious damage.”</p><p> </p><p>A few paces behind them, Telise glanced at the older Angel with a curious raised eyebrow. “Procedure?”</p><p>Angel didn’t respond, instead she was staring at the man with a look of such intense <em> loathing </em>that it almost took Telise’s breath away. It was a hatred of such purity and intensity that it was far beyond anything she’d ever seen in a person’s eyes before, and it was all for this one man walking with them. Eventually Angel noticed her staring, and when Telise raised her eyebrows in question she looked back to the man and practically spat out his name.</p><p>“Major Harold Omarian. Head of Experimental Sciences in the Research &amp; Development department of the Atlesian Military.” The name and title rolled out of Angel’s mouth as if it was pure venom that made her feel sick to even say, and her nose twitching in loathing as she glared, even as she continued following along.</p><p>Frowning, Telise tilted her head in thought as she looked through all of her mother’s memories and knowledge, and nodding when the man’s name came up a few times from the intel that they’d all been collecting on people of interest in the military, for their eventual move on Atlas sometime in the potentially far future.</p><p>“Quite the man, from his reputation.”</p><p>“Calling him a man is generous. Headmaster Lionheart reached out to General Ironwood of Atlas for assistance with my problem, and the Experimental Sciences division had been experimenting with aura manipulation anyway. A few phone calls and exchange of files between Haven and Atlas later, and here I am at his mercy.”</p><p>Sighing as she forced her hatred and anger to deflate out of her, Angel pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a moment, before shaking her head in resignation and straightening her shoulders.</p><p>“Let’s just keep going.”</p><p>Telise’s voice was impassive as it almost always was, as she followed at Angel’s side, her hands folded behind her back. “Of course.”</p><p> </p><p>The memory was clearly a long one, remembered in vivid detail even if <em> some </em>details did appear to be strangely distorted and strangely exaggerated, for reasons that Telise had her suspicions about but hadn’t dedicated enough thought to in order to come to any conclusions. The group passed through white sterile hallways as they moved through the larger facilities of the Atlesian military complexes, eventually winding their way to what were clearly the massive facilities of the R&amp;D division. As they began to pass by labs and workshops, Telise made sure to glance around and memorise as much as she could. Even if this was over a year ago, any intel of recent work could be useful, and Angel’s increasingly impressive memory allowed her to study a great deal as they passed by the different rooms and suites.</p><p>The scientists kept talking among themselves quietly, leaving the younger Angel to follow silently, the same subdued and guarded expression on her face and her hands in her pockets. As they got closer to whatever their first destination was, the older Angel kept glancing at her younger counterpart with a sympathetic but resigned look.</p><p>Of all the memories they’d visited, this was clearly the one Angel herself thought over the most, and while she clearly hadn’t found any peace with it there was a certain...acceptance, in her eyes.</p><p>The group finally reached the workshop they had been aiming towards, clearly not wanting to waste any unnecessary time, and with a swipe from Major Omarian’s credentials the doors opened silently and they were escorted into a large multiple-room laboratory, where half a dozen scientists were busy at work tampering with equipment and components.</p><p> </p><p>“As you’ve already seen from our files, our progress in aura processing has accelerated greatly in recent months, thanks to Doctor Polendina’s innovations in synthetic aura stabilisation. Sadly he can’t be with us today due to his own health, but he sends his regards.” Major Omarian gave an apologetic smile, before gesturing to an unmanned workstation and terminal, not stopping as he led the group through to what was clearly the main workshop and fabrication area.</p><p>Laid out on a table in advance were a series of components and sealed cases, likely containing fully assembled equipment, which the two other men alongside Omarian were quick to open up and prepare. Telise recognised the bracers that would become Angel’s arm limiters, along with the flexible collar, but there were other components and items in the layout that she didn’t recognise at all. It looked to be a series of small plates, curved into u-shapes, each of them clearly electrical in nature, with circuitry and other exposed components visible on the inside of the curve.</p><p>After looking over them, Telise glanced over to Angel with the question in her eyes, but Angel was simply staring at the table as well with a completely neutral expression, her eyes completely walled off, so Telise instead shifted her attention to where Omarian and his men were explaining their idea.</p><p>“The hard part was miniaturising the different components of the circuit, considering the only working model of this sort of design prior to this was designed to be able to transfer aura from a person to...another receptacle, and it’s also far too large to be mobile. So altering the concept to suit a device that’s to simply contain and vent the pressure inside of the one single person was certainly a challenge.”</p><p>Omarian picked up the bracers from the table and gestured to them, pointing out the different components.</p><p>“Once we’ve implanted the transfusers into her arms, the limiter itself is a simple enough design that can be removed and reattached as needed. The collar is the same concept, able to attach and reattach to a similar implant between the first and second cervical vertebrae.” </p><p> </p><p>Omarian returned the bracers to the table and gestured to a few of the components that Telise hadn’t recognised, clearly intended to be surgically implanted and attached to her bones and nervous system itself, for the limiters to plug into when they were attached to her. Blinking in surprise, she looked over to the older Angel again to catch her mindlessly scratching at the edge of the limiter on her left arm, seemingly unaware that she was doing it.</p><p>As Major Omarian kept pointing out more and more components, Telise’s posture straightened more and more as she realised the truth, what none of them had been able to notice due to Angel being fully clothed and laying on her back on the table.</p><p>“How many implants are there?”</p><p>“Twenty eight. One for each vertebrae in my spine, one on each arm.” Angel’s voice was completely devoid of any emotion as she answered, and Telise watched as she unbuckled her jacket and shrugged it off, before turning her back to Telise and pulling up the back of her shirt, revealing her scars.</p><p>A vicious line of scars had healed all the way up her back, impossible for her aura to heal entirely due to their purpose being limiting the aura flow <em> through </em>them. Unlike the ones attached to her arms and her neck, the ones in her spine were constantly active.</p><p>When Angel was satisfied that Telise would have had time to study them all, she pulled her shirt back down and turned back around, grabbing her jacket and slinging it over her shoulder instead of putting it back on properly. Glancing back to the table, she raised her eyebrows for a moment before looking back to Telise.</p><p>“We can fast forward if you want, he’s just going to explain each individual component of the circuit.”</p><p>Standing in thought for a few moments, watching the presentation happening only a few paces away, Telise crossed her arms and spoke without looking at her.</p><p>“Did you think it might work?”</p><p>“I didn’t care. Dangers like me weren’t ‘fixed’, they were ‘stopped’.” Angel put her free hand into the pocket of her pants with a frown, watching the demonstration as well. “Fast forward it...four minutes, round about. That’s when the answer to one of your questions happens.”</p><p> </p><p>Raising her eyebrows, intrigued, Telise hummed in curiosity as she did so, the memory blurring past them as Omarian picked up and explained each component, before putting it down and moving to the next one. Eventually, he finished, and the scientists congregated around the table to talk between each other, meanwhile Major Omarian pulled Georgia and Angel aside. When this happened, Telise returned their attention to it, slowing the memory back to its normal speed, and the two of them walked over to listen in to the conversation.</p><p>“Now...just to mention it again, you’re aware of the condition of having access to this technology, and the procedure?” Omarian thinned his lips and folded his hands behind his back, and in response Georgia gave a single nod, meanwhile Angel perked up and looked between the two of them.</p><p>“...condition?”</p><p>“Yes, Miss Wince. The rights to this technology belong solely to the Atlesian Military, which means that access to it can only be provided between the Huntsmen Academies. Civilians don’t have access to it.” Major Omarian nodded sternly, giving Angel his full attention and tapping his fingers together behind his back. “General Ironwood has discussed it with Headmaster Lionheart, and your mother. The only way you can have access to the procedure, is if you’re a Huntress.”</p><p>The younger Angel’s eyes widened in realisation, and she looked at her mother in shock, before her eyes sharpened when her mother looked unsurprised.</p><p>“Mum...you knew??? I don’t...I don’t want to fight. I’m studying to be a <em> doctor, </em> I don’t even know <em> how </em> to fight!” Angel looked between her mother and the Major, who were both watching her patiently as she went through her panicked thoughts. “I could never want to be a Huntress. I don’t want to fight, to...kill, to live a life of…. <em> no. </em> That’s not...that’s not <em> me. </em>”</p><p>“I’m sorry Angel.” The Major spoke honestly. “But if you want any chance of coming across a solution, that’s the necessary trade.”</p><p>“Then <strong><em>I’ll</em></strong> find another way!” Angel shook her head at him, before turning to her mother, who’s eyes were sad. “ <em> Mum </em>, this...I’ve never…”</p><p>“I know baby, I know.” Georgia sighed, softly cupping her daughter’s cheek in her hand. “But we’re out of all other options.”</p><p> </p><p>There was something in the way she said it that carried weight from what had clearly been a conversation they’d had previously, or even a few times, and the weight that Telise didn’t have any context for settled over the younger Angel’s face, the girl turning away from her mother and the Major entirely, closing her eyes and walking a few paces away for some privacy and to think.</p><p>The older Angel walked over, standing invisibly by her younger self and watching sadly as she thought and panicked.</p><p>Telise stayed a few paces behind, looking between both Angels, and the two adults that had put the choice in front of her. “So that’s how.”</p><p>“Yes.” Angel answered without looking away from her younger self. “That’s how.”</p><p>“Your mother didn’t tell you until you were here in Atlas.”</p><p>“She knew I would have said no. She wanted me to see the science first, so that I’d factor it in to my choice.”</p><p>“That sounds an awful lot like trying to take the freedom of the choice away from you, doesn’t it?”</p><p>Angel nodded slowly, the movement slight at first but then larger, and she let out a sigh before glancing over at the memory of her mother in this moment. “She’d given up hope. She just didn’t know how to say it. They’d all finally given up. In her eyes, it was either this, or I’d eventually burn myself up and die.”</p><p>“To save your life, all she had to ask you to do was give up your dream, your life...even your moral code. You were a doctor.” Telise took the final few steps to be beside her, and they both looked over at Georgia. “And they made you become a soldier.”</p><p>“I’d never even held a weapon in my life until that first day at Haven Academy…” Scoffing at the recollection, Angel bundled her jacket up so she could cross her arms over herself.</p><p>“So they partnered you with Lillian Vale. A babysitter.”</p><p> </p><p>With how simply Telise said it, Angel blinked before looking over at her, frowning in thought for a few moments before she sighed and looked down. It was a thought she’d had before, but had never been proud of herself for having.</p><p>Everyone had gotten exactly what they wanted out of her; The problem was solved, she was a guinea pig for the Atlesian Military, and Haven Academy had a student with unbreakable aura and a genius level intellect, who also happened to be a trained doctor, even if not fully qualified. Everyone had gotten what they wanted from her.</p><p> </p><p>“All you ever got was hurt.”</p><p> </p><p>Clearly the passage of her thoughts had been showing across her face, with how bluntly but also softly Telise said it, and Angel found her grip on the material of her jacket tightening as a spark of anger hit her chest. The memory had paused around them as Telise let her think, they both knew what the younger Angel’s answer was going to be anyway, so everything around them was completely silent as Angel closed her eyes in an attempt to snuff out the anger before it grew.</p><p> </p><p>“They locked you away. They treated you like an unstable weapon of mass destruction. They tortured you weekly for years.”</p><p> </p><p>Squeezing her eyes shut tighter, Angel buried her face into her jacket in an effort to force herself to slow and deepen her breathing.</p><p> </p><p>“Even your own mother sanctioned it. Their efforts were about stopping you instead of helping you. You weren’t raised, you were restricted.”</p><p> </p><p>Even though she was trying her best to stay calm, with every word Telise was softly but determinedly saying she felt her blood growing warmer, and she tensed every muscle in her body as she looked up from her jacket again and looked over at Telise right at her side, where the other woman was simply looking at her in open honesty.</p><p> </p><p>“And then, when simply torturing you didn’t work, they turned you into a guinea pig. Kept you alone, deprived of any contact except for trips to and from labs where they refused to listen to you and what you knew about yourself, instead so convinced <em> they </em>could solve you that they kept causing accidents that they then blamed you for. Like the testing facility back in Haven.”</p><p> </p><p>She still didn’t say anything, she didn’t even know if there were words to even say, instead all she could do was let herself burn hotter and hotter as it sank into herself, and she let her jacket fall out of her grip so she could run her hands up her face and into the hair on the back of her head, gripping it tightly as she began to rock back and forth, her breaths coming out heavier.</p><p> </p><p>“And after years of it. Keeping you alone, testing you, torturing you, locking you up, making you blame yourself for everything, they took the last thing you had left; your future.” Telise turned her attention to the rest of the room, her gaze lingering on the dozens of components laying out on the tables that would soon be implanted directly into Angel’s spine. “The dream you’d been holding onto since you were twelve. Studying all day every day locked away in that blast vault. Your dream of becoming a doctor. Of helping people. It was all you had.”</p><p> </p><p>“Stop.”</p><p> </p><p>Angel’s eyes flashed as her blood grew hot and the surface of her skin began to ripple, her eyes staring right at Telise and refusing to look around the rest of the room, because if she laid eyes on Omarian and her mother in that moment it would have only made things worse. Her chest felt tight and her fists were clenched so tightly her bones hurt.</p><p>So, Telise stopped speaking. Instead she merely continued the memory, just in time to see the younger Angel accept defeat, her trademark defiance beaten out of her after years of the same treatment and process. The girl’s eyes were closed and her jaw was set, and the older Angel looked at her with such protective <em> outrage </em>that it wouldn’t have surprised Telise if it had somehow broken through and warmed the room up even back in time. But of course it didn’t, they were ghosts, and could only watch as Angel turned back to her mother and Omarian and nodded.</p><p>But nodding wasn’t enough, as Omarian retrieved a large tablet from the nearest table and opened up the consent form, which Angel coldly pressed her thumb to in defeat, and slowly signed her name. After that moment, the memory grew slightly blurry and distorted as she must have clearly zoned out and locked herself in a small corner of her mind to allow her body to operate on autopilot as she was walked through the process for the rest of the day, nodding mindlessly at all the right points, until eventually she and her mother were guided out of the room by another of the scientists in order to prepare for surgery within the next few hours.</p><p> </p><p>Telise and the older Angel followed behind, Angel’s skin rippling with a glow that she was working as hard as she could to subdue. But this memory...wasn’t as easy to detach from as the others. It was too recent, too raw, and still too painful.<br/>Angel knew what was coming, and because she did she didn’t have any hope of washing her outrage and despair away.</p><p>What followed was an hour of silence for the younger Angel as she stayed locked in a corner of her own mind, sitting like a statue in wait with her mother repeatedly trying to engage her in conversation or try and get some food into her.</p><p>Regarding Georgia coldly and curiously, Telise tilted her head and hummed, her hands folded behind her back and her entire posture without any sympathy, purely intrigue. “Do you think she felt guilty?”</p><p>“She wasn’t able to detach from me like she was for other patients. For obvious reasons. So...maybe.” Angel’s voice was cold, but there was a razor-sharp edge to it that Telise’s lacked, and so the woman glanced next to her to where the girl was still glowing, her fury buried just underneath the surface but still potent. “I’d stopped being afraid of whatever they might do to me over a year ago, but this...this was different.”</p><p>“Of course it was. They’d done terrible things to you, but they’d never <em> mutilated </em>you before.”</p><p> </p><p>The words had the desired effect as another ripple went through Angel’s skin, and the girl looked away, sucking in a deep breath to hold for a few moments and let out slowly. There was so little left inside of her after the past days, hell, after the past few <em> months </em>, her exhaustion and her memories stripping it all away piece by piece, leaving only anger and defiance.</p><p>Both of which she had to keep swallowed if she was going to escape the rest of this memory intact.</p><p>Eventually it was time, and the younger Angel was changed into a surgical gown without putting up any resistance or saying any more than just basic responses to questions and prompts, but when she was led into the surgery theatre she froze. The sight of the restraints and numerous tubes surrounding the slab, with high-precision robotic claws and instruments above, had a spark of fear catch in her throat, and she froze abruptly enough that her mother almost bumped into her from behind, the woman putting a supporting hand on Angel’s back to encourage her to keep walking.</p><p>The girl tentatively and shakily went through the preparations, before she stepped up to lay face-down on the bed, the restraints put in place to prevent her from moving if her aura woke her up mid-surgery.</p><p>From the corner of the room, the older Angel watched in barely contained dread and memory, her fists clenched so tight they were shaking at her sides, and her eyes actively glowing as she held it all inside. But as the claws began to move in assistance with the close to a dozen surgeons and bioengineers in the room, clamping down on the restrained Angel’s body to begin pumping her with drugs harmful enough to burn away her aura and then hopefully anesthetize her. The girl began to spasm against the restraints and the tight clamps as her aura fought and burned, but the claws simply clamped down tighter, and her aura was eventually damaged just enough that the numerous strange tubes could be inserted into specific points on her body and also clamped into place.</p><p>When one of the engineers stepped over to a large device the size of a fridge, but cylindrical, and began to type commands into a terminal on the side of it, the older Angel finally broke her gaze and looked away in dread with her eyes squeezed shut. The machine whirred to life, and Telise watched in complete fascination as the younger Angel began to glow as her aura was slowly actively drained out of her, sucked down the tubes and stored into what was clearly some sort of giant battery capable of storing aura.</p><p>Angel screamed in pain, thrashing against the restraints and the anesthetic wasn’t enough to numb her to the energy of her soul itself being extracted from her, and even when the dosage was increased in a panic it barely seemed to take the edge off. The extraction also clearly took far longer than the engineers had predicted, and the flow eventually had to be diverted to a secondary storage unit, the first filling to overflowing.</p><p>This repeated a few times, every back-up storage device filling until eventually the flow was diverted to feed directly into the Atlesian power system and vent into the power grid directly, moving through a massive transfuser that sparked dangerously, almost unable to handle the energy flow.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, after far too long of screaming, sobbing, and thrashing, the younger Angel’s aura shimmered and weakened, and she slumped as the drugs finally overtook her system. But Telise noticed that even after all of that...her aura didn’t break. It merely weakened.</p><p>After a few moments of silent shock in the room at what had happened, the surgery began, and the skin of her back was sliced open and peeled away with the precision only capable through robotic assistance.</p><p> </p><p>The older Angel was vibrating in rage and hatred next to Telise, and she looked over at the girl, unsurprised to see her glowing in barely contained fury, her eyes shining behind tightly closed eyelids, the smouldering heat in her chest and blood having been whipped into an inferno at the sound of the screaming and the thrashing of her younger self in agony. The memory had been crisp and sharp, clearly remembered, and Telise could almost swear she’d <em> felt </em>the pain that had been seared into Angel’s memory and unconscious.</p><p>“You were awake this time too.”</p><p>“...yeah.” Angel croaked out quietly, nodding, and still looking away. “Just drugged.”</p><p>“Did they know?”</p><p>In response, Angel merely pointed to one of the monitors, not even having to open her eyes to know exactly where it was in the monitoring gallery up above. The screen displayed Angel’s brainwaves and activity.</p><p>Omarian had known she was awake.</p><p>“...how long did the surgery take?”</p><p>“Seventeen hours.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in acknowledgement, her fingers tapping together in fascination behind her back, Telise tilted her head as she watched the process of the implanted limiters being attached to the vertebrae in Angel’s spinal cord the entire way along it. Being awake for seventeen hours as your spine was effectively taken apart and metal grafted onto it, would have been something that she could barely imagine.</p><p>But the girl next to her could, and for seventeen hours the two of them stood silently, watching every moment of the memory. After the first two, the older Angel had opened her eyes and turned back to watch. Eventually, after her arm implants were also completed, it was the moment of truth.</p><p>Typing some commands into a handheld command pad, everyone watched as the limiters along Angel’s spine engaged, syncing together and starting the network that would keep her contained. Her arm limiters and collar were then attached for the first time, each beeping to life to indicate they’d been attached successfully. A collective sigh of relief went through the theatre and the gallery as nothing immediately short-circuited or failed.<br/>Then it was the true test, as increment by increment the aura-extraction was reduced and Angel’s aura was able to stabilise, gradually returning to full strength within her body. Her skin glowed and rippled wildly for a few moments, and the electrical devices in the room sparked and flickered as they always seemed to when her aura grew powerful enough it charged the air, but...it stabilised. The limiters began to cycle her overflow of aura back into her own system, creating a loop that would hold.</p><p>And it burned. The thrashing and sobbing in agony resumed as her body was seared from the inside out by her own soul, and she pulled wildly against the restraints. Telise recognised it, as it had just happened to the older Angel in the waking world, but it wasn’t quite as bad this time, eventually stabilising as her aura dampened, the younger Angel eventually passing out from the pain.</p><p> </p><p>Telise turned to the older Angel next to her, who was openly glowing brightly enough in protective and traumatised fury that her hair was silver instead of black, and her eyes were almost entirely white. The power rippling off of her was palpable on Telise’s skin, and her eyes widened as she watched a pure and carnal fury that she had managed to unlock in Angel over the last few days <em> rage </em>through the girl’s body.</p><p>“Your Semblance has grown even more powerful...to compensate for the limiters.” Telise breathed out, her eyes flashing in awe and a smile breaking out on her face as she stared at the girl. “...they really couldn’t cripple you, could they.”</p><p>“No. No matter what they did, it never stopped. The only difference from this moment onwards, was that I was the only one who hurt.”</p><p>“I’m sorry I made you watch all of that, but I needed to see every moment.”</p><p>“Don’t apologise.” Surprising Telise enough she blinked, Angel shook her head as her lips curled into a vicious snarl and the leathers of her back burned away as her aura ripped through it. “The reminder helps sometimes.”</p><p>“Helps?...”</p><p>Angel brought her hand up in front of her eyes and clenched her fist, staring with wild eyes at the way her hand was glowing and rippling, and she narrowed her eyes. “The only thing that ever worked was anger.”</p><p>“I know. I’ve felt it from the start.” Shaking her head in wonder, Telise reached out and brushed some of Angel’s shining white hair back behind her ear as Angel stared at her hand. “You ended up never trusting them, with anything. Hating them. Using it as fuel...”</p><p>Pausing in thought, Angel glanced up into the gallery where her mother and Major Omarian were standing and talking in deep conversation. Telise looked around when the memory flickered, and for a brief moment they were back in Angel’s room, the vault door tightly closed, but it only flickered for a moment before they were back in Atlas.</p><p>Telise’s eyes widened again as she stared at Angel.</p><p>Angel’s Semblance was overpowering hers as her aura did.</p><p>“Wouldn’t <em> you </em> have? They did this to me. <em> All </em>of this. I had to make it worth it, no matter what it made me feel inside.”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>“And in the end, I wasn’t the only person who paid the price.”</p><p>“Your teammates.”</p><p>“Lucy might not have died if it was someone else there and not me. But Lionheart and the Academy trapped me in and put me with them.” A single shining tear leaked from Angel’s eye, and she closed her eyes again to prevent anymore, clenching her fist tighter as her chest briefly lost the ability to breathe from the tightness in it. “They <em>forced</em> me to get her <em>killed</em>.”</p><p>The sound of a teenage girl’s bright laughter sounded out as if from a memory, and Telise looked around them as another memory seemed to leak into the one they were currently in. Angel’s mind was mixing around. It was falling apart as her rage grew stronger, and Telise could no longer contain the awed smile and laugh from coming from her mouth, her eyes wide and staring as the walls around them rippled and began to dissolve away as the memory warped.</p><p>“Look at this, Angel!” Telise spun slowly, gesturing to the cracking foundations of the memory as they glowed from within with the same light of Angel’s Semblance. “Keep going!”</p><p>Angel squeezed her eyes closed tighter, covering her face with her hands still clenched into fists as a sob broke through the tightness in her chest, the memories from the past few days mixing with her fragility and tearing open the cracks. A high pitched whine was in the air around them as one of her foundations broke and the room around them shattered, leaving them just in a black void of the locked corners of her mind, the darkness around them flashing and sparking with white flames and forks of lightning.</p><p>It grew higher and higher as Angel’s hands instead went over her ears to keep out the whine, her eyes tightly shut but the glow of them now so powerful that her eyelids were lit. Telise looked around in intoxicated awe around them, her clothes and hair blowing as if in a hurricane she couldn’t feel as her features <em> finally </em>looked truly inhuman from the cruel and vicious sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her face.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b> <em>“MORE!”</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>Unable to contain it, Angel finally screamed, dropping to her knees with her hands over her ears as the limiters on her arms shattered and her collar turned to dust, and Telise’s aura infused into her was turned to ash, throwing both of them back into the living world where she was still curled up on Telise’s lap, their lips meeting in that poisonous kiss.</p><p>Angel was glowing in her arms despite the fact her limiters still existed in the physical world, and the girl’s grip on Telise’s jacket tightened for a moment before she broke off the kiss and threw herself to sit back on her knees, panting and gasping as the pure roar of her <em> ‘Obliteration’ </em>filled every cell and fiber of her being.</p><p>Telise watched her silently as Angel gasped her breaths and slowly collected herself, her thoughts returning to her as her mind and aura stabilised. Slowly her breaths deepened and grew more controlled, and her muscles relaxed just as she opened her eyes, which were still glowing from within though the light was dimming.</p><p> </p><p>“What...<em> was </em>that?”</p><p>“You.” Telise breathed, that cruel and awed smile blooming on her face. “That was <em> you. </em>”</p><p>“I’ve never…” Angel looked down at her still glowing and shimmering arms and hands with wide eyes, her voice a hoarse whisper. “I’ve <em> never </em>felt it like that.”</p><p> </p><p>They were both silent for a while, Telise simply watching as Angel watched her aura return to normal and the glow vanish again, the girl’s eyes still swimming wildly with something raw and vicious that was calming at such a slow rate Telise wondered if it ever might truly vanish again at all, a thought which had her bite her lip gently.</p><p>“It’s a certainty that my mother and our Queen felt that.” Telise rose to her feet, before reaching down with both of her hands.</p><p>“...yeah…” Angel nodded mindlessly, shaking her head to clear it further as she allowed Telise to gently pull her to her feet. She was shivering, but not from anything unpleasant. “...were we just on the floor for seventeen hours?”</p><p>“No, barely a minute. The mind is far faster than reality.”</p><p>“So...I still have to meet...her?” A spark of anxiety went through Angel’s eyes, and she looked away nervously for a moment.</p><p>Nodding, Telise dropped Angel’s hands and folded her own in front of herself politely, tilting her head. “Shall we?”</p><p> </p><p>Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, dread soaking into her muscles even as the crackling of defiance and wild anger remained in the back of her eyes, Angel slowly nodded and looked towards the door.</p><p>Her hands still shaking and the green of her eyes still tinged slightly white from her aura just beneath the surface, Angel squared her shoulders nervously.“...lead the way, I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The halls of Salem’s castle were as dark and ominous as Angel could ever have imagined, and she kept her hands in the pockets of the jacket Telise had dressed her in, finding security and comfort in the familiar posture as she followed along behind the other woman, who was walking completely relaxed with her hands folded behind her back, not a single hair out of place and not a single crease in her clothes, having tidied herself up just before they’d left the lab.</p><p>While Angel’s posture was withdrawn, anxiety eating away at her gut, she couldn’t help but look around at everything they passed, her curiosity poking away at her fear enough to have her pay rapt attention to everything they walked past that could be interesting. The first time they passed a window, Angel froze in place as she got her first view out at the Domain Of Darkness, and her eyes widened at the hordes of Grimm stretched out across the seemingly infinite wasteland of toxic earth and the black rivers of ichor from which the creatures of death rose.</p><p>Noticing Angel had paused, Telise stopped as well, stepping up next to her to look out across the wastes as well, giving Angel a few moments to process exactly what she was looking at. The sky was forever the same sickly purple, there wasn’t a single sign of any sort of life apart from the Grimm, and it truly looked as if it stretched an eternity over the horizon. It was like a whole different world from the one that humanity and <em> life </em>called home, and Angel closed her eyes in resignation at just how lost she was.</p><p>When Angel had clearly absorbed the implications of the haunting view, Telise started walking again, the sound of the movement snapping Angel out of it enough that the girl followed. The hallways twisted and turned, displaying the truly impressive size of the castle, and for a dozen hallways and turns there weren’t any signs of other life, not a single sound or sight that might imply they shared the space with other people at all.</p><p> </p><p>Telise could tell that Angel was uneasy due to it. “This wing of the castle is for my mother’s use. The only occupants are her, Kakra, and myself. My sister is still asleep. It’s just after dawn.”</p><p>“...oh.”</p><p> </p><p>Eventually they emerged into the main rooms and halls of the castle, where all the numerous wings converged, and sounds of life began to become audible even if only quietly, on the edge of Angel’s hearing. Voices, things being moved, footsteps, there were signs of life, and something about that was both reassuring <em> and </em>terrifying at the same time. She squared her shoulders again as they kept walking, but her eyes continued to flit in every direction.</p><p>Further along their walk down the central hallway of the castle, a door opened, and a tired looking Emerald emerged, still waking up from yet another night of restless and disturbed sleep, but already fully dressed and prepared for the day. Angel stopped in her walking in shock as her eyes locked onto the other girl, and when Emerald finished rubbing her eyes and noticed her as well she seemed so stunned by the sight of her that she froze like a deer in headlights.</p><p>“...h-hey Angel. You doing okay?”</p><p>“...Emerald…”</p><p>Even Telise raised her eyebrows the slightest movement at the <em> poison </em>in Angel’s tone as the other girl’s name slid out of her mouth, and Angel took a few steps forward, her hands coming out of her pockets. Emerald had the spine not to take a step back, but the instinct was there as the only slightly shorter girl half closed the distance between them in only a couple of paces, Telise following slightly behind out of curiosity.</p><p>“So. It’s true. <em> You </em>really were…” Angel hesitated as her eyes sparked with hostility, and she looked away, scoffing and shaking her head.</p><p>“...yep.” Emerald could only nod in confirmation, her face guarded. </p><p> </p><p>Angel didn’t respond, simply taking another few steps, and it was enough that Emerald almost <em> did </em>take a step away, but Angel simply walked past her and continued down the hallway in the direction Telise had been leading her.</p><p>Hesitating for a moment just as Angel passed, Emerald spoke up. “I’m sorry about-”</p><p>A surprised yelp came out of her throat as Angel slammed the palm of her hand into Emerald’s chest and pressed her violently against the nearby wall with a bang, her other hand immediately going to the clasps on her limiter as her aura roared to life, going from nothing, to her shining like a fiery sun, in less than an instant.</p><p>“Finish that sentence and the only thing left of you will be my memory of how much you deserved it.” Angel snarled, her eyes sparking and shining white. Emerald’s own eyes widened as she pressed back further against the wall, unable to prevent her anxiety from making an appearance any longer as she nodded rapidly.</p><p> </p><p>Angel held her stare for a few moments longer, clearly still considering it as her fingers played with the clasps of her limiter in consideration, and all the other two could do was watch, Emerald in fear while Telise watched in anticipation. But, eventually, Angel released Emerald from the wall and stepped back, lowering her arms, and continuing on without another word.</p><p> </p><p>Continuing to follow behind, Telise didn’t spare a single glance to Emerald as she passed, but she was amused out of the corner of her eye as Emerald gasped deep breaths to calm herself. Some unconscious animal instinct in the girl had told her very clearly that her life had been in danger, the raw rage and hatred Angel had stared at her with had driven it home to her just how vulnerable she was at that moment. But Telise didn’t say a word, she simply caught up to Angel as the girl slowly calmed down yet again, the glow fading from everything except her eyes, where it continued to shimmer just underneath the surface like it had been ever since they’d watched her most recent memory and she’d finally broken.</p><p>Telise gave a small smile which Angel couldn’t see.</p><p>This girl...she was perfect.</p><p>She shivered happily, and kept going.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually the anxiety in Angel’s gut overpowered her lingering wild ferocity, and she slowed, her face paling again in dread and fear as they finally reached the large doors of Salem’s grand hall, which were heavily closed. There wouldn’t be a meeting in session for a few weeks, with Tyrian currently in Mistral hunting down Ruby, and Hazel was in Mistral as well dealing with Adam Taurus of the White Fang as the man prepared for his coup against Sienna Khan in the coming days.</p><p>As for Doctor Watts, the man seemed to prefer to make himself scarce as much as possible, conducting his own minor missions of espionage around the world.</p><p>Leaving just two of Salem’s inner circle, but only one was important right now.</p><p>Telise didn’t even need to knock on the large doors before they opened slowly, and the smooth and powerful voice of Salem spoke up, not sounding above her normal volume but still somehow carrying across the large room.</p><p> </p><p>“Enter.”</p><p> </p><p>As the doors swung open properly, Telise turned to Angel and gestured for her to enter first. After a moment of terror which she masked well, Angel took a deep breath to steady herself and stepped inside, her eyes widening when she took in sight of Salem for the first time. The woman was...<em> haunting </em>to look at, there wasn’t a single human or mortal thing left about her except for her general form, and it had everything inside of Angel’s chest and stomach squirm anxiously as those cold cruel red eyes stared at her and appraised her.</p><p>“Ahh, prompt as always Telise. Thank you.”</p><p>Next to Angel, Telise bowed respectfully and elegantly, before straightening up and placing her hand on Angel’s back.</p><p>Across the far side of the hall, Salem and Delilah had been talking quietly in low voices, Delilah reporting her slow but steady progress on her experiments with the birthing pod. Though the real reason she had been summoned to Salem’s side was to be present for the coming examination and conversation, and Delilah stood obediently and politely off to Salem’s side, giving her daughter an approving nod and smile, which had Telise practically glow in pride.</p><p>“Of course, my Queen. Anything you require.”</p><p>“Go to your mother, child.”</p><p>Salem waved a dismissive gesture with her hand, and Telise immediately crossed the room to stand next to her mother, pressing a good-morning kiss to her cheek, and Delilah gave her a fond smile and grabbed her hand affectionately to give it a squeeze in response.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Salem took a step towards the frozen Angel, who was unable to stop her hands from clenching and unclenching at her sides, but she managed to meet and hold Salem’s stare. Despite her anxiety, the predatory way Salem was looking at her was enough for her to twitch, and her face steeled in defiance as she raised her head confidently.</p><p>Pausing a few paces in front of Angel, Salem folded her hands in front of herself in thought as she scrutinised the girl, her red eyes travelling slowly over her form.</p><p>“Angel, yes?”</p><p>“...yes.”</p><p>“Delilah and her daughters have told me quite a bit about you. Remove your jacket and give me your hand, child.”</p><p> </p><p>Angel hesitated, but the cold and commanding tone in Salem’s voice brooked no argument and made it clear she would tolerate no disobedience, so even with hostility in her eyes she stripped the jacket off and placed it over the back of the nearest chair, and extended her right arm towards Salem and spread her fingers.</p><p>Humming in thought, Salem took her hand in hers with a softness that surprised Angel, and the woman immediately began to examine the limiter attached to her arm, an amused glimmer appearing in her eye as she ran the fingers of her free hand over the metal.</p><p>“Oh James, your creations always did run away from you.” She chuckled coldly at some joke only she understood, before squeezing Angel’s hand in hers gently, her gaze going from Angel’s arm up into her eyes themselves. “Ah, I see what Telise meant now…I am so very sorry for what the Academies did to you, child. Barbaric.”</p><p>Blinking in surprise, Angel’s eyes briefly flashed with rage at the thought, and she looked away, clenching her jaw. “...thank you, I think. It’s alright.”</p><p>“No, it most certainly is not.” Salem shook her head slowly, placing her other hand on top of Angel’s so she was holding the girl’s hand between both of her own, a tenderness in the gesture that brought Angel’s eyes back to her.</p><p>Holding it for a few moments, Salem released Angel’s hands and straightened, crossing her hands behind herself as she regarded the girl curiously, and when she spoke next her sharp and commanding tone had returned.</p><p>“Do you know who I am, child?”</p><p>“You’re...their Queen. From my guess, you’re also queen of the Grimm. But that’s all I know.”</p><p>“Is that so?” Salem looked over her shoulder at Delilah and Telise, a small look of disappointment on her face that had the two other women flinch, before she turned back to Angel. “My name is Salem, and those things are true.”</p><p>“...so it was you that ordered the destruction of Beacon?”</p><p>“It was. Do you know why?”</p><p>Angel’s eyes narrowed and she clenched her jaw. “Been trying to figure <em>that</em> out for months now.”</p><p>“It’s quite the explanation, but not one for right now. No, what interests me right now, is you, Angel.”</p><p>Blinking, Angel’s mouth dropped slightly open for a moment in anxiety, before she swallowed. “...me?”</p><p>“What is it you want, Angel? More than anything else in the whole world.”</p><p>“I want to go home.” The answer came out immediately, and confidently, but Angel was surprised when Salem simply raised her eyebrows.</p><p>“To the one that tortured you? The one that gave you your little cage?”</p><p>Scoffing and looking away again, Angel shrugged. “It’s home.”</p><p>“It’s a prison, and you know it. So I do not believe <em> that </em>is what you want the most.”</p><p>“You think <em> you </em>know, then?” Angel looked at her with the challenge in her eyes, and her skin briefly glowed from within, but barely enough to be noticeable. But Salem noticed, and she gave a sympathetic smile.</p><p>“When was the last time you weren’t in pain, child?”</p><p> </p><p>Angel’s mouth dropped open again wordlessly as her chest tightened, and her eyes flicked over to where Telise was standing and calmly watching, a shocked but unsurprised accusation in Angel’s look that had Telise nod slightly in confirmation to it. At it, Angel’s jaw tightened, and she looked back to Salem, but no words came as the sparks were once again ignited in her eyes.</p><p>She was too raw. Too tired. Too angry.</p><p>Everything was too fresh. The memories too close to the surface.</p><p>As the room was slowly lit as Angel began to glow once more, her skin sparking and rippling as her immense aura rose to the surface in response to her rage and her hatred and her <em> despair, </em>Salem gave a small and satisfied smile at what she was looking at.</p><p> </p><p>Most Semblances were so puny compared to the magic she had known in her time as a mortal human, before humanity had been destroyed the first time. The Semblances of the current age...so many were nothing, were dust compared to mountains. But not all.</p><p><em> Some </em>were something else entirely.</p><p>The command of flesh, the ability to control Dust, constructing powerful Glyphs, the ability to alter fate through fortune or misfortune...some Semblances such as those were beyond the scale most of humanity or faunus kind could <em> ever </em>hope to comprehend.</p><p>But this girl…</p><p><em> This </em>girl…</p><p>She was power <em>incarnate</em>.</p><p> </p><p>So much so that her humanity couldn’t handle it. One thing Salem had learned early in her centuries alive, was that this new humanity was ill-designed to handle true power.</p><p>But…</p><p>“We can stop you hurting, child.”</p><p>Angel’s eyes focused sharper, though it was hard to tell for the glow that was within them, the power that her limiters were struggling to maintain. But she unclenched her fists, and tilted her head in suspicious thought.</p><p>“I’ve heard that before.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding, having expected the response, Salem glanced over her shoulder to Delilah, an unspoken order in the look. Nodding obediently, smiling in confidence and anticipation of her own, Delilah crossed the distance until she was standing next to her queen, across from a gradually dimming Angel as the girl’s curiosity fought against her progressively more unhinged fury.</p><p>Without a word, Delilah slowly and calmly extended her hand to Angel, palm upwards, and waited.</p><p>Angel stared down at Delilah’s hand for a moment, before the power pulsing through her mind and whirling together with her unthinking temper had her reach out and clasp Delilah’s with her own out of curiosity.</p><p> </p><p>At the moment of contact, Delilah gently used her Semblance to link their auras together, but only <em> partially. </em>She immediately gasped loudly and in shock as Angel’s aura began to flow into her own, the sheer presence and force of it like a tsunami crashing down onto her own psyche as an infinite well of power crashed into her. The black veins across Delilah’s skin grew vibrant and empowered as her own aura was fuelled by her connection with Angel’s body, and the green in her eyes pulsed vibrantly and unnaturally as she was filled almost to the brim.</p><p>Behind her, Telise gasped as well, nearly doubling over as the spill-over began to filter into her own reserves, and she looked down at her own hands as the black blood in her own infused flesh drank in the excess power greedily, soaking into her flesh.</p><p>As Delilah concentrated, the sheer excess of Angel’s energy began to flow through her like a conduit, spreading out to each of her dozens of children connected to her, the sheer weight and pressure of it shared between all of them. Out in the wastes, Kakra was forced to land as her mind was overwhelmed by the extra power.</p><p>It took minutes, but slowly...it stabilised. Angel blinked, still glowing brightly and filled to the brim, before looking down at where her and Delilah’s hands were clasped. Her aura wasn’t being forcibly drained out of her, she was still filled absolutely to bursting, but the overflow was...gone.</p><p>And without it, so was the pain. Her body wasn’t burning.</p><p>The limiters were still firmly in place, barely much at all was leaking out into Delilah’s connection with her, but it was enough for relief, and Angel looked up into Delilah’s eyes in mindless shock. At the look on Angel’s face, Delilah gave a confident and reassuring nod, before she gently released Angel’s hand.</p><p>The moment the physical link was broken, and Delilah’s Semblance was no longer able to interact with her flesh and attune to it, the sheer force returned purely to Angel’s ability to handle it, and she was immediately scorching on the inside all over again, squeezing her eyes shut.</p><p> </p><p>Groaning into her clenched jaw, she hunched over in pain, only able to shake and pant in all-too familiar but still overpowering agony as it slowly subsided and her aura stabilised, the limiters feeding it back into herself and burning her from the inside out every moment as she calmed down and it faded away. It took minutes, during which Salem watched silently with the only expression on her face being the same small cold smile, but eventually Angel was left panting and slumped on her hands and knees.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so sorry they failed you, Angel.” Delilah spoke quietly kneeling down so she would be eye-level with the other girl once she was able to lift her head. “I’m sorry for everything they did to you. None of that was right, but...it was the best they were capable of. And that says everything about them it needs to.”</p><p>Angel didn’t respond, still focusing on her breathing and the throbbing inside of her head as she calmed, sweat pouring down her forehead, but she also didn’t pull away when Delilah reached out and placed her hand on her shoulder.</p><p>“But I can help you. I can make it so it never hurts again. Telise showed me your memories. My cruelty could never hold a candle to their own, and inside of you...you know that.”</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, after another half a minute of panting, Angel was able to speak, her voice breathy and pained. She was still shivering in shock, as well as the lingering afterwaves of that pure potent level of rage...the only thing that had ever worked to help her focus her energy.</p><p> </p><p>It was true. The memories were fresh again now. Right on the surface. Telise’s words rang through her ears, everything she’d made her rewatch. The vault, the restraints, the facility failure...the surgery.</p><p>She’d been betrayed. Tortured. Used. Experimented on.</p><p>And the only people who had paid for it, had been herself and her team.</p><p>Her being captured was the best solution Lionheart and the rest of Haven could have possibly hoped for.</p><p>The thought was bitter, and poisonous, and it made her curl her fingers into the stonework of the hall floor.</p><p>But all the same…</p><p>“And what’s the catch?”</p><p>“You help us. In only a couple of months, we’re setting out to destroy Haven. To burn it to the ground. Help us.” Delilah’s voice was firm, but there was a reassuring and confident tone to it that had Angel look up at her with wild and hateful and unhinged eyes.</p><p>But for the first time, the hate wasn’t directed at her.</p><p>“...and in exchange, that becomes permanent?”</p><p>“Stronger, once we’re linked together.” Delilah nodded, giving a small smile.</p><p>“...when we first spoke, you said it would make me immortal.”</p><p>“It will. My children don’t age. You wouldn’t get sick. No more scars.”</p><p> </p><p>Angel’s eyes were still wild and cracked as she stared into Delilah’s, who met her stare with a confident and almost <em> eager </em>one of her own. Nodding as the thought processed, Angel looked up at Salem, who was still watching impassively.</p><p>“Destroying Haven...do you intend on tearing it down just as much as you did Beacon?”</p><p>Chuckling at the wild look in Angel’s eyes, Salem tapped her fingers together. “Not explicitly, but there’s no opposition to true havoc from me. As long as my goals are achieved.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding again, Angel looked down at the ground in thought, closing her eyes.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Delilah, who was still kneeling in front of her, allowing them to be eye-level.</p><p> </p><p>“Three conditions.”</p><p>Delilah raised her eyebrow. “Oh?”</p><p>“...can you make me stronger? As in…” Angel raised her fist and clenched it, a slight rippling glow beneath the skin. “...I never much liked using a weapon.”</p><p>“I can.” Losing herself in thoughts for a few moments as she pondered over it, Delilah’s face developed a small frown. </p><p> </p><p>While all of her children were far stronger than humans or faunus, Angel would need <em> considerable </em>physical strength and constitution to be able to handle her fully unlocked aura anyway. Even once she would be able to vent excess to her siblings and Delilah, her body would need enough resilience and raw power to handle the sheer level of her energy, otherwise there were still chances of her incinerating herself.</p><p>There was a solution. Sitting in a jar in Delilah’s lab.</p><p>It would scare her to death to risk it.</p><p>But for the girl in front of her...the girl who had gone through so much. Who <em> deserved </em>this so much...she’d risk it.</p><p>So she nodded, and repeated herself. “I can.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. Second thing...I’m not going to eat people.”</p><p>“You know, I don’t actually <em> make </em>Kakra do that.”</p><p>“Oh. Huh.” Angel tilted her head in thought, narrowing her eyes before making a grossed out expression. “Fair enough. That’s fucked.”</p><p>“Third condition?”</p><p>At the third one, Angel’s face developed a small and <em> absolutely </em>unhinged grin in the corner of her lips, and she raised her eyebrows down at herself.</p><p>“Can you make me taller?”</p><p> </p><p>Blinking at the request for a few moments, Delilah let out an amused laugh and she nodded, gently cupping each of Angel’s cheeks with her hands for a moment before running them down to rest them on her shoulders, her face growing serious.</p><p>“So...is that a yes? You’re not going to be Angel afterwards.”</p><p>“...how much will I remember?”</p><p>“It’s hard to say. You’ve got a powerful and compartmentalized mind, so you’ll likely remember far more than the other two did.”</p><p>“I don’t want to remember most of it anyway.” Angel shook her head dismissively, before looking off in thought for a minute. Delilah and Salem let her think it over, waiting patiently.</p><p> </p><p>Looking back to Delilah, Angel’s eyes were crackling with righteous fury and hatred, and she nodded.</p><p>“...okay. You win. You...can have what you want.”</p><p>Delilah rose slowly, and with a confident and welcoming smile she offered her hand, pulling Angel to her feet easily. While Angel was dusting herself off, Delilah looked to Salem.</p><p>“By your leave, my Queen?”</p><p>Thinking over it for a few moments, Salem gave a single nod. “Bring her to me once she’s complete. Impress me.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.” Delilah gave a polite bow, before turning to Angel and giving another small smile. “Shall we?”</p><p>“Sure, why not.” Smiling back, Angel raised her eyebrows. “Not like I had anything else to do with my day.”</p><p>“No...no I suppose not.”</p><p> </p><p>Delilah led Angel out of the grand hall quietly, while Telise lingered behind a few moments before starting to follow, only to pause when Salem placed her hand on her shoulder as she passed.</p><p> </p><p>“You did well, Telise.”</p><p>“Thank you, my Queen.” Telise gave a grateful smile and bow. She chuckled as she straightened up, already taking a step to the side to continue after her mother and Angel. “It wasn’t much of a challenge.”</p><p> </p><p>As Telise left the hall as well, Salem watched in amusement as the door swung closed, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She turned to the nearest window and looked out over the wastes, barely noticing as Kakra landed just outside of the castle to go to her mother’s side for whatever part she had to play in Angel’s evolution.<br/>With every passing day, more pieces appeared on her side of the board. The Fall Maiden, the genius of Atlas, the man who felt no pain, the scorpion who had mastered death, a witch who could control flesh, the witch’s daughters….<br/>And now, she had her fallen angel.</p><p>Just over two months until the strike against Haven, and there wasn’t a single thing that could stop her now.<br/>Haven would fall even easier than Beacon had.<br/>Telise was right.<br/>It wasn’t even much of a challenge.</p><p> </p><p>As Delilah and Angel walked together through the halls back towards Delilah's laboratory, Delilah glanced over at Angel with a curious expression. "May I ask something?"</p><p>"...sure." Angel raised her eyebrows at her, her hands back in her pockets.</p><p>"Why call your Semblance <em>'Obliteration'</em>? I've been meaning to ask."</p><p>"Because...that's what it always seemed to do. It turned everything around me into nothing, not even ash remained a lot of the time."</p><p>"...I see. Well, let's see what we can do about that." Giving Angel a reassuring smile, Delilah was warmed when Angel nodded, and then raised an eyebrow as Angel looked over at her.</p><p>"So, do I change my name myself, or do you name me like all parents do, or...?"</p><p>Delilah shrugged "That's up to you. Kakra chose her name, loosely based on her old name. Telise <em>kept</em> her human name."</p><p>"Huh...fair enough." Angel tilted her head in thought, pondering it for a moment, before whatever it was she was thinking had her bring her fist up in front of her eyes and clench it tightly, a shimmer going through her aura as her rage reignited once more, but only enough that it swam underneath the surface of her skin. "I don't know why my parents named me Angel. And I've never exactly felt like one. Angel's are light, and gentle, and free. I never felt like any of those things."</p><p>"It does seem like a cruel trick. So did you have something else in mind?"</p><p>Thinking over it for another few moments, Angel slowly nodded, still staring at her fist. "The only things that ever helped were anger and resentment. They gave me strength, willpower...focus. God I don't think I would have kept myself alive for as long as I have if I hadn't let my anger fuel my will to live and make everything they were putting me through worth it. Telise kept pointing it out. Saying it like she thought it was all that they left of me whenever they were finished experimenting on me and locking me away. There's an old Mistralian word for it. Strength of will, through rage."</p><p>Delilah didn't verbally ask the question out loud, she merely looked over to Angel and raised her eyebrows in curiousity, her hands folded behind her back as she waited for Angel to finish. After a few more moments of pause, Angel seemed to come to her decision and she sighed, putting her hand back in her pocket and looking over to meet Delilah's patient and curious eyes.</p><p>"<em>Ira</em>. When I wake back up, call me Ira. I'll remember what it means to me."</p><p>"I can do that." Delilah nodded with a smile. "We're going to achieve so much together, Ira."</p><p>"I'm <em>not</em> going to call you mum."</p><p>"Considering you actually do look younger than me, I'd feel a bit weird if you did."</p><p> </p><p>The two women gave each other another grin, before Delilah put her hand on the right door as they reached it, and ushered Angel into the laboratory.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Aaaaaaand she cracks.</p><p>That is the last of 'Angel' we shall see of in Red Thread Noose! Her evolution won't be revealed until the next part in our story...and it's a doozy.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Prodigy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>With Sunny and Weiss making immense progress working together, something was bound to go wrong, and when Weiss loses control at her concert and in doing so threatens to destroy everything SPKZ were working for, Sunny decides for them all that they're going to do everything to help her.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p>Sunny honestly didn’t mind logistics and business practice that much. It wasn’t his favourite thing in the world, but numbers and reports made sense to him, he was able to sort through them and finish them quickly. So, showing up for work every day at the SDC cleanly dressed in his specialist uniform, he had developed a routine;</p><p>He arrived before pretty much anybody else, always looking immaculate with a cup of coffee, go to his small office, usually raise an eyebrow at the large amount of fresh paperwork waiting for him (courtesy of pettiness by Jacques Schnee), and without fail he would have it all done by the time the business day began a couple of hours later, much to the poorly hidden frustration of the supervisor Jacques had assigned purely to attempt to make his life a living hell.<br/>An hour before the business day began, Weiss would arrive, exactly on the hour and not a minute later. Always dressed perfectly in one of her wide variety of business outfits, not a hair out of place, she’d politely greet him as she passed, giving the same four knocks on his door to request permission to poke her head in and greet him.</p><p>The words were polite and proper, nothing out of the usual or suspicious for whoever might be listening in, but...her smile was always warm, and even if her eyes were sad from whatever might be haunting her there was always a warmth in the corner of her lips, and his response was always the same way. Two minutes of polite conversation, then she would leave his office to enter her own right next to him and begin her own mound of paperwork.</p><p>Then, the day would begin. Always a day of paperwork, phone calls, meetings, and a thousand negotiations. Dust supplies through the military contracts were rigid in their agreed upon numbers, but the SDC attempted to find as many ways as they could to squeeze more lien for less dust, and they underestimated Sunny because of his youth and his inexperience.</p><p>It was a mistake, and they were learning <em> very </em> quickly that they had to be more careful, because on more than one occasion he’d turned the tables on them and gotten <em> more </em> dust for <em> less </em>lien.</p><p>He knew for a fact that three people had been fired for their incompetence in attempting to twist him around and beat him. The thought gave him no small amount of satisfaction, just like anybody he enjoyed being good at something, even if this wasn’t exactly what he had planned on spending his life as a Atlesian Specialist doing.</p><p>But they had a plan, and his assignment actually aligned with the plan perfectly.</p><p> </p><p>Which was why he casually smuggled plenty of the reports and information through to Kirian and Zav to be added to the rapidly growing amount of clues and intel at their disposal. With Sunny’s access to both the SDC and the military Dust allocations and mining information, Kirian’s work in the R&amp;D department alongside his excursions whenever Petyr’s last gift to them gave him a name to investigate, and Zav’s personal brilliance at his own ability to find the sorts of clues and connections the other two had no way of doing, the three of them together were making rapid progress.</p><p>They were developing a sharp picture of just who the real players were in Atlas, and the players in Atlas were the ones who had the military and the council wrapped around their finger. Every clue pointed in the same direction when torn apart;</p><p>The Gemgrind Coalition.</p><p> </p><p>A vicious and amoral collaboration of the city’s most ambitious and successful mining lobbyists, everything from dust mining to rare metals, between them they had most of the council completely in their pocket. And the legislation they wanted implemented, or changed, was ruthless and cold. Mining restrictions in Atlas were for protection more than anything else, it was dangerous and risky work to drill into the ice to look for minerals at the bottom of each shelf, and plenty of the mountains had been completely carved out already over the decades of the mining rush.</p><p>What made the Gemgrind Coalition so concerning to them currently, was that Jacques Schnee didn’t seem to be a member. They associated with him, but he didn’t seem to be fully brought into the fold.</p><p>Yet.</p><p>And it was clear that Jacques wanted in.</p><p>Even Weiss had begun to smell that something was off, but that was unsurprising. She was <em> leagues </em>smarter than Sunny was and the boy had no insecurity in admitting it. The girl was brilliant, even though she hated the work she was dragging the Logistics &amp; Reports department up through sheer intelligence and force of will. Numbers were climbing, contracts were being renegotiated, she was single-handedly saving the SDC millions in lien. Sitting in meetings with the girl was like watching a savant play their instrument, he barely needed to open his mouth sometimes, he just sat attentively and watched her work.</p><p>Every time he found an opportunity to compliment her, or mention it, she’d wave it off with a thank you and a polite smile, but the pink in her cheeks always appeared. Those sorts of compliments were some of the only words he could safely get away with in public that could approach being considered ‘warm’, given their respective positions and roles. So he tried his best to find every appropriate opportunity he could to say them, his support an undertone he knew she always heard.</p><p>But she was miserable. No matter how flawless her makeup was, she couldn’t quite hide the growing bags of tiredness under her eyes. She was drinking more and more tea each day just to keep going, she always ate in her office, and when appearing at formal parties she was subdued.</p><p>For the most part.</p><p>Because Sunny always rescued her for a dance, even if just the one.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You’re going to get us both in trouble eventually, Sunny.” Weiss scolded him, even as she gripped his shoulder slightly tightly as they circled the dancefloor. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “We’re both in trouble already. I just won’t let you be in trouble alone.” Giving her as warm a look as he could manage, Sunny squeezed the hand he was holding, and her face melted into a grateful smile as she stepped slightly closer as they danced, allowing him to slide his hand from her waist ever so slightly so his fingers warmly rested on the edge of the small of her back. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But she still sighed. “People are talking.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I know.” He grit his teeth as his eyes flicked to people in the room who he knew had begun spreading gossip about the two of them. “I’m sorry.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I...don’t be. I just thought you’d worry.” Weiss’ voice was quiet, and nervous. “It doesn’t bother me.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Me neither. I care about how you’re feeling more than I care about what they’re saying.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The words from him, spoken softly but full of certainty and comfort, had caused her eyes to sparkle in gratitude as her hand on his shoulder briefly slid for her fingertips to stroke the back of his neck, before immediately returning to his shoulder properly. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “That...is definitely mutual, Sunny.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Snapping out of his thoughts, Sunny returned to paying attention to the meeting he was in, where Weiss’ voice was also clear from next to him as she quickly and sharply countered an argument that had been sent her way. His job as liaison was to represent military interests and handle military contracts, and this meeting had very little to do with that, but just in case it came up he was required to sit in on it anyway.</p><p>It didn’t bother him. It meant he could watch Weiss work, and be there as moral support whenever she <em> did </em>begin to get flustered on her more stressed days.</p><p>And twice a week, sitting in Zav’s small living room around his table with the two others, Kirian would look at him with that same wary and cautious expression, no longer needing to say the words out loud for Sunny to hear the warning loud and clear;</p><p>
  <em> “Be careful. Don’t get distracted.” </em>
</p><p>But he didn’t bother say it anymore, the argument always went around in circles whenever he did. Sunny wasn’t distracted, no matter what Kirian might worry.</p><p> </p><p>“-numbers in the 13-b district are up four-percent compared to last quarter, and due to company policy that means that we conduct a thorough revision of all private lightning-dust contracts in order to see if any are possible for renegotiation.” Weiss was tapping her pen on the papers in front of her in thought as she spoke, raising an eyebrow at the men across from them even as she kept her voice as neutral as possible. “Which means that the Merevix Processing numbers came across my desk, gentlemen. I know what your portfolio looks like.”</p><p>“That is <em> private </em>company information, Miss Schnee, I don’t-”</p><p>“Which is exactly why the numbers won’t leave this room, Mr Bexer.” Weiss placed her pen to the side and casually flipped her folder closed, signifying the meeting was coming to an abrupt and pointed finish. “But I suppose the conflicting statements you’ve been giving us should be easy enough to fix. Of course, if we have to fix them on <em> our </em> end they become public record, we <em> are </em>a public company after all, unlike your own. But if you were to handle it by accurately reporting your growth, the only people who would have to know are those of us in this room. It’s just a fact that it would mean your growth officially enters the range where you enter the higher payment-bracket.”</p><p>“This is <em> extortion! </em>” Mr Bexer, a thoroughly unimpressive man, was gradually going redder in the fact as he put his hands on the table aggressively. He towered over Weiss, but Sunny felt no need to stand up and counter-intimidate. Weiss was scary enough on her own, and she knew she was.</p><p>“<em> This </em> is enforcing otherwise neglected company policy. I am not my father, Mr Bexer. And even if this wasn’t legal, which it is, the term you’re looking for would be <em> blackmail. </em> But it’s only blackmail if it's something untoward or illegal, such as falsifying and understating information you are contractually bound to accurately share.” Weiss simply raised her eyebrow at the man, holding his stare unblinkingly, and when he blinked she nodded in victory, before gesturing to Sunny without looking at him. “By looking over your <em> actual </em> numbers, the three of us in this room know your company owes the Atlesian Military almost as much processed cylindrical lightning-dust as you owe <em> this </em> company lien, Mr Bexer. But those reports haven’t formally passed through Specialist Whistlewinds hands yet. You can negotiate with <em> me </em> about paying the Schnee Dust Company the lien you owe <em> and </em> a way for those dust cylinders to find their way through to the military as per the contract, or those numbers land on <em> his </em>desk and you can negotiate with the military itself. I’d go ask your superiors which is their preference. The next opening in my calendar is four o’clock on Wednesday, I shall see you then. Good morning.”</p><p> </p><p>With that, Weiss gave Mr Bexer a simple nod and picked up her folder, and Sunny followed suit. He’d barely needed to say a hundred words the entire two hour meeting, not that Weiss gave him much room to get a word in anyway. They both left Bexer blustering and outraged, the door to the meeting room swinging closed behind them gently, and they both made their way back through the halls towards their offices.</p><p>“You realise just how much money you just earned if he caves, don’t you?”</p><p>“Of course. I did run the numbers.” Weiss snuck him a small smug smile, raising her eyebrows, and he smiled back. “And <em> you </em>get to report an incoming shipment of over a hundred-thousand lightning-dust cylinders.”</p><p>“You are perhaps the sole reason my superiors like me, Miss Schnee” Sunny opened the door leading through to their wing and held it open for her.</p><p>As she passed, she lowered her voice slightly and slipped him a slightly larger and cheekier smile. “Oh Specialist Whistlewind, there’s no ‘<em>perhaps</em>’ about it.”</p><p>Raising his eyebrows at her as she walked past, he rolled his eyes once she couldn’t see, an amused smile in the corner of his mouth, before following after her. As she reached the door to her office just in front of him, she paused with her hand on the doorframe, before looking back at him as he closed the distance to his own door.</p><p>“...Specialist Whistlewind, are you intending to attend my concert tonight?”</p><p>“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Miss Schnee.”</p><p>“Wonderful. It’s my first concert since returning to Atlas.” Weiss’ professional mask slipped for just a moment, where only he could see, and she bit her lip anxiously. “All familiar faces would be most welcome.”</p><p>“I will be enjoying the evening for <em> every </em>moment of it. I assure you.” Able to hide his own expression as well, Sunny fixed her with a reassuring stare. She smiled in gratitude and relief, before quickly returning to her professional demeanor and entering her office.</p><p> </p><p>Stepping into his own and closing the door behind him, he let out an anxious breath as he finally got to relax, before glancing up and at the clock on the wall. There was only five minutes until his work-day at the SDC concluded and he was to return to base to attend to his military duties, which for today included two hours he had booked for the training room.<br/>Despite having been a specialist for well over a month now, he had only made sure to use the training facilities when he knew that no-one else would be in them. While the training room truly did seem capable of handling his Semblance (though he would never go all-out, never using it above half of its strength), the same couldn’t be said for other living people. Even if they weren’t caught in the flames, the sheer heat in the air would be harmful to aura, so he made sure to use the facilities when he knew the other Specialists would be on duty.</p><p>With only ten minutes to go, he was free to pack up, and he found no small amount of satisfaction and joy in being able to do so. He didn’t hate his position, it was mostly just very very boring, and he had never handled being bored particularly well, no-one in his team had ever been good at it.</p><p> </p><p>Once his bag was packed, he stood by his office window and looked out quietly, letting himself sink into thought. Weiss was performing her first concert since returning to Atlas that evening, and Sunny didn’t doubt for a second that it had Jacques’ fingerprints all over it. Public opinion of the SDC in the Atlesian Elite was falling, so throwing a party built around a reminder of what tragedy the Schnee heiress had gone through was a perfect way to reignite public sympathy and buy him more time to fix his problems.</p><p>But it had become obvious to all three boys that his particular problems weren’t going to be fixed anytime soon, not unless he sold his soul to the only people in the city who might be even close to being considered his competitors.</p><p>Grabbing his scroll out from his pocket, he flipped through to the most recent information he’d sent through to Zav and thumbed through it. The SDC had already started giving discounts and fudging the numbers in their deals with six very specific other companies, who each used lightning and hardlight dust for their mining and processing operations. Merevix Processing was one of those companies, and Serebro Merevix was a <em> very </em>powerful man, with very powerful friends.</p><p>The Merevix name had been pinged by Petyr’s virus three times so far, but their corporate headquarters were so locked up tight that it would be practically impossible for any of the three of them to get in there to have a better look around and access their files directly. Whatever business the assumed-dead Arthur Watts was playing around with in Atlas, four members of the Gemgrind Coalition apparently had enough of his signature on them that Petyr found it worth mentioning.</p><p>But there was little they could do yet, when it came to the bigger fish.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing in frustration, Sunny was relieved that it was finally time for him to leave, and he put his satchel on over his shoulder before making his way out. He wished he could stick his head in and check on Weiss one last time before he left, but she’d been right the other night when she’d said that people were already talking rumors about the two of them, and that wouldn’t help matters.</p><p>People in every room of the SDC kept an eye on them, and most of them weren’t even being paid by Jacques to do it.</p><p> </p><p>Making his way out of the building quickly, his car was already waiting for him, and beyond polite greetings and directions he didn’t speak a word for the trip back to base, simply looking out of the window and tapping his fingers on the armrest in thought. Hopping out when arriving, he returned to his quarters as quickly as possible, dropping his bag down onto the floor as soon as his door was closed behind him, and taking a few minutes to flop back onto his bed and close his eyes.</p><p>He and his friends hadn’t exactly hit any actual roadblocks, they were still making progress, it was just very <em> very </em> slow progress. They weren’t infiltrators and they weren’t hackers, so they were doing things very gradually through official channels (while also committing copious amounts of corporate and military espionage, in order to find out who to target in the first place). But success would mean finding out just what had happened to Atlas’s role in the fall of Beacon, which according to Petyr’s last words meant finding Arthur Watts, a man <em> very </em>much considered dead.</p><p>Letting out a frustrated groan, Sunny hopped to his feet and changed from his business uniform to his combat uniform, finding a degree of comfort in being back in his more personal gear, and he slid his proper sword into its sheath on his hip.</p><p> </p><p>Corporate espionage, business management, social intrigue...all were things he’d been taught how to do, but none was something he liked.</p><p> </p><p>But as he left his quarters and headed towards the training room, his hand dropped to rest on the sword on his hip.</p><p>There was one thing he was good at that he liked.</p><p>And the training room would have to do until the three of them finally had an enemy in front of them that could be put down properly.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>While the three of them wish they could say that the concert went off without a hitch, it most certainly did <em> not </em>go off without a hitch. The actual performance itself had been beautiful, it always was with Weiss, the girl was phenomenal, but the party afterwards had gone very wrong very quickly.</p><p>Neither Sunny or Kirian had actually seen what had happened, both of them being on the other side of the room with some of the other Specialists talking and mingling at the time, but the familiar roar of a Grimm had gotten all of their attention and each of them had looked over just in time to hear a gunshot and see white dust.</p><p>There had been silence in the ballroom, you could have heard a pin drop. Festivities had ended almost immediately after that.</p><p> </p><p>Less an an hour later, Kirian and Sunny were sitting at Zav’s dining table, Sunny resting his head on the table while Kirian nursed a drink and Zav scrolled through his tablet reading all the gossip and reports live as they happened, which wasn’t doing much for Sunny’s mood as he listened to things gradually get more and more exaggerated every ten minutes. Nobody had actually gotten hurt, that much had been confirmed almost immediately before the party had even ended, but forty-five minutes later some rumours were reporting injuries, one report even tried to suggest that somebody had died, and most weren’t sure whether or not to stick to their original stories or go for the more sensationalist bullshit.</p><p>“You know, at this rate she’ll be a domestic terrorist by dawn.” Zav remarked with a half-amused sigh as he scrolled down his live feed, having had Weiss’s name marked on his tablet and scroll months ago so he received a ping for every time something about her was published.</p><p>Sunny groaned in exasperation, not looking up from the table, before quietly banging his hand on it in frustration. “There are not many ways tonight could have gone worse for her.”</p><p>“I can think of….two.” Kirian spoke up, taking a sip of his drink, unable to keep the small smile from the corner of his lips. “The first is if she had actually killed someone. The second is if Ironwood had missed the Grimm and shot <em> her </em>instead.”</p><p>“She’s got an aura, she would have been fine.” Zav waved his hand dismissively without looking up from his scroll.</p><p>“I don’t know about that.” Kirian raised his eyebrow sardonically. “I designed the blueprints for Ironwood’s new pistols myself. There’s a decent chance the family would be down another heiress.”</p><p>“<b> <em>Guys!...</em> </b>” Sunny groaned again, though he couldn’t quite hide the dry laugh in his voice. “This isn’t helping.”</p><p>“Uhh, there isn’t any ‘helping’ that we can do.” Zav thinned his lips in pointed resignation as he looked up from his tablet to take a sip from his own drink. “I hate to say it, but <em>she</em> did this.”</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, Sunny conceded the point with a shrug of his shoulders, forehead still on the table as he spun his glass slowly with his hand. It was a disaster, in far too many ways to count. The way the game in Atlas was played meant that this would affect her, Jacques, the Schnee name, the SDC, the Marigold family, Ironwood, and god knows what else. Her negotiation position within the Logistics division was shattered now, from here on out, making her basically worthless to the company as anything other than a desk jockey. All the hard work she and Sunny had done to fix low-income wages and allocate funds to the departments that needed it the most would all come crashing down, and most of it would be undone by whichever puppet Jacques put back in control of it.</p><p>Which meant it undid a lot of SPKZ work as well, with the official work they’d been doing to take power away from the families that Petyr’s virus had been implicating now likely about to be undone. It was yet another nail in the coffin of driving it home that trying to do things officially and above-board wasn’t going to work, the Atlesian system wasn’t one that could be fixed from inside of it, it was too well controlled by those in power who held all the resources and influence and knew how to use it.</p><p> </p><p>If there was any good thing likely to come from the night, it was that it forced the boys to accept that they were going to have to start doing things the way they’d been trying to put off. Zav had been putting together the right dossiers already for months, knowing the day was coming, but it was just a matter of using them.</p><p> </p><p>Sunny checked his scroll. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was suddenly decided that there was no longer a need for a military liaison by morning, or if there was Jacques was going to find a way to get Sunny replaced by someone more malleable now that he could overrule Weiss, who had been the one who could formally approve Sunny’s appointment. Frankly Sunny wasn’t going to shed too many tears over not having to go into an office anymore, but it also meant that he was almost definitely going to be deployed into a combat zone.</p><p>And there was only one place that Sunny would be sent, since he was one of the only Huntsmen on the planet who could survive there any length of time;</p><p> </p><p>The Deep Freeze.</p><p> </p><p>Grimm numbers in the Deep Freeze had been increasing wildly in the year since the attack on Beacon as they multiplied wildly underground in the massive networks of natural caves in the ice shelf and then came up to the surface. While there weren’t any settlements of any kind out in the Freeze, since people couldn’t survive outside for more than five minutes unless they had aura or were wearing the right safety gear, they were still able to be drawn slowly in the direction of Mantle.</p><p>While they wouldn’t be drawn close quickly, the Grimm from the Deep Freeze ice caves were of Grimm varieties that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world, not even in other regions of Atlas, and they were insanely dangerous and powerful.</p><p>It meant that combat specialists had plenty of work to do out there, and plenty of the <em> actual </em>Specialists had been spending decent deployments there already anyway. It was where Winter Schnee spent decent amounts of her time when she wasn’t back in Atlas working closely with the General, and even the Ace Ops were sent there occasionally.</p><p>It was inevitably going to be Sunny’s turn. Not only was he a combat specialist, but because of his Semblance he was both immune to the freezing temperatures and also perfectly equipped to destroy ice Grimm.</p><p>He didn’t mind the idea.</p><p>Being somewhere he could burn as hot as he wanted to, and fucking up a lot of Grimm, felt like a <em> really </em>therapeutic idea right now.</p><p>But death rates out in the Deep Freeze were understandably high. Granted it was normally the sheer cold that killed soldiers and Huntsmen out there, because all it took was someone ignoring the safety regulations for an extra minute to sometimes mean death, and for Sunny that wasn’t going to be a problem. The thought was still a strangely sobering one though. He’d be going there alone, it meant being away from Kirian and Zavraii for the first time since joining the Academy four years ago, and he’d be in a commander position for the first time due to being a higher rank than almost all foot infantry in the general military.</p><p> </p><p>And so far as a leader he had a 33% fatality rate.</p><p> </p><p>That particularly dark thought had him sit up from the table so he could have a very deep drink from his glass, large enough that his friends both looked at him with raised eyebrows. Noticing he was being looked at, he shrugged and put his glass back down.</p><p>“Just thinking about how staggeringly quickly everything has gone wrong.”</p><p>“Yep…” Kirian sighed, looking up at the roof, his eyes counting the cracks in the ceiling as he thought. “We’ve been working too slowly.”</p><p>“No, we’ve been working <em> carefully. </em>” Zav stretched out the last word. “That’s an important difference. If we get discovered, these are the sorts of people where we might suffer some sort of unfortunate accident.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t strictly be opposed to one right now…” Sunny grumbled, nursing his drink, and Kirian raised an eyebrow at him with a small smirk while Zav ignored him deliberately as he went back to his tablet.</p><p> </p><p>They sat quietly for the next hour, the only conversation being updates from Zav about whatever was being said about Weiss and the concert, the details of the night changing regularly depending on who was reporting, but eventually even the gossip streams of the city went quiet as the city fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. Kirian was dozing in his chair at the table, his legs up on the back of the couch, while Sunny lost himself in his thoughts, thoughts which were dark and serious enough that Zav slid him another filled glass when he finished his previous one, before putting the bottle away so that Sunny wouldn’t reach for it again once he was done.</p><p>Meanwhile Zav kept working, since he tended to sleep during the day anyway due to most of his contacts only really operating at night, and he was happy to quietly keep Sunny company as his friend lost himself in thought while staring down into his glass.</p><p>Eventually, just as the sun was rising over the horizon for what the three of them were hoping would be a quiet Saturday to give them some time to figure out what to do next, Sunny’s scroll rang. The noise was enough that Kirian’s eyes clicked open, the boy impossible to startle or make jump, meanwhile Zav’s head whipped up from where he was sitting. Sighing, Sunny picked it up and looked at the number.</p><p> </p><p>It was the General.</p><p> </p><p>Closing his eyes in resignation, Sunny raised it to his ear and answered.</p><p>“Good morning sir.”</p><p>
  <em> “Morning Sunny, still not asleep, then?” </em>
</p><p>“No sir. Hoping for an easy day. What can I do for you?”</p><p>
  <em> “Report to my office as soon as you’re able. Preferably before noon.” </em>
</p><p>“Consider me on my way, sir.”</p><p>
  <em> “Good man.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The line went dead, and Sunny rose, grabbing his personalised Specialist coat and throwing it back on, buckling it up quickly. “Well, I get to go get my new orders bright and early on a Saturday morning.”</p><p>“...I’m sorry, Sunny.” Zav sighed, running a hand over his face in resignation and looking up at his friend. “I know you didn’t want this.”</p><p>“It’s the job, Zav. I can still help from the Freeze. Just...differently.”</p><p>“Keep us posted.” Sitting up properly, Kirian rose to his feet as well and stretched. “I might as well head up to the city as well, if you’re grabbing an airship.”</p><p>Nodding, Sunny let out a sigh and took another gulp from his mostly full glass, which he then slid to Zav for the boy to finish if he wanted to. Zav gave both of his friends a grim and resigned smile as they made their way to the door.</p><p>“We’ll figure it out. Keep me updated.”</p><p>“Of course.” Kirian gave a casual salute as he stepped out, exhaustion always making him a bit more relaxed and casual. Meanwhile Sunny merely gave a sad nod as he followed his friend out, closing the door behind him.</p><p> </p><p>The trip to the airship terminal and then up into the city was quiet, both of the boys too tired to make any proper conversation, and Kirian tiredly waved over his shoulder as he made his way to the Specialist quarters to flop down onto his bed and sleep. Meanwhile Sunny straightened his uniform as neatly as he could and made his way into the central tower, scanning his credentials in the elevator to allow him up to the top floor. The building was almost completely silent at just before dawn on a Saturday, and his footsteps echoed as he stepped out into the small atrium outside of Ironwood’s office.</p><p>Knocking on the closed door, a very tired voice told him to enter, and he stepped in quietly and closed the door behind himself, before turning to face where Ironwood was standing by the massive windows of his office looking out over the city, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion as he lost himself in thought. At the sound of his door opening and closing, he looked over to Sunny and nodded, gesturing for the boy to come into the office properly.</p><p>“Sunny, thank you for coming so quickly.”</p><p>“Of course, sir.” Sunny crossed the distance to stand in front of Ironwood’s desk, his hands folded behind his back as he waited patiently.</p><p>Ironwood sighed and sank into his desk chair gesturing for Sunny to sit down as well, and the boy gladly did so, groaning in relief slightly loud enough that Ironwood gave a small smile and nodded.</p><p>“It’s been one of those nights, yes.”</p><p>“Likely worse for you than for myself, sir.” Sunny sighed in sympathy for the man, and Ironwood nodded slightly to concede the point. “What can I do for you, sir?”</p><p>“Your time as liaison to the SDC has come to a close, Specialist Whistlewind. The SDC Logistics Division has assured us they have no further need for the point of contact.” Ironwood folded his hands on his desk, and watched Sunny’s face carefully for any reaction. When he didn’t get any, he frowned ever so slightly, but with no reaction to bring attention to he pressed onwards. “As such, you’re to return to general duties until receiving your next proper deployment, starting Monday. Take the weekend to reorganise your affairs to account for this, and from Monday you are to report directly to Specialist Lance on the daily for general mission deployment.”</p><p>Sunny took in a deep breath and let it out as a quiet sigh, nodding slowly. “Yes sir.”</p><p>“Your work at the SDC was exemplary, Sunny. I’ve seen the numbers.”</p><p>“Thank you sir. I’m glad my efforts paid off.” Sunny nodded in thanks for the praise, before giving a small smile. “I’m not lamenting the chance to get back out into the field though.”</p><p>“No, no I doubt you would be. There are moments I feel the same. We’re both definitely men of action, Sunny.” Ironwood chuckled in understanding, tapping his fingers together in thought. “Speaking on those lines, there is another deployment I am considering you for.”</p><p>“You want to send me out to the Deep Freeze, sir?”</p><p>Ironwood raised his eyebrows high, his fingers stopping in their tapping. Regarding Sunny for a moment, he nodded just the once. “I do. I’m sure you understand that you’re perfectly suited for the terrain. But I’m waiting for the latest reports on Grimm numbers from the region before I make that decision. Would you object?”</p><p>Taking in another deep breath, far deeper, and holding it for a few moments, Sunny tried not to let too much stress show on his face. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide all of it, and Ironwood thinned his lips slightly when he noticed some, but in understanding and not in any judgement or disappointment. Every soldier and Specialist knew the dangers of that territory. But Sunny let out the breath slowly, and shook his head firmly and confidently.</p><p>“No sir. You’re right, I’m perfectly suited for it.”</p><p>“It would still only be a standard duration deployment to the region. Two months, so within safety regulations.”<br/>“Understood, sir. I’ll be ready.”</p><p>“You’ll have your orders the moment I decide they’re warranted.” Ironwood nodded, rising from his chair, and Sunny did the same. “For now though, go get some sleep. I’m not far off myself, though I won’t get much.”</p><p>“A busy weekend then, sir?” Sunny rolled his shoulders to stretch, while still trying to be as polite as possible. Ironwood sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in tiredness and rubbing his eyes again.</p><p>“Always, Sunny. A meeting with the council just after lunch, and then another with Jacques Schnee just before dinner.”</p><p>Pausing and raising his eyebrows at the last part, Sunny frowned in curious concern, before speaking carefully. “Because of last night, sir?”</p><p>“...not exactly. Nothing I can get into.” Ironwood shook his head, formally dismissing the subject, and Sunny nodded obediently.</p><p>“I’ll leave you to your rest, sir.”</p><p> </p><p>As Sunny turned and began to make his way out of the room, Ironwood’s voice stopped him, the man’s tone almost...suspicious.</p><p>“Sunny, you were privy to all SDC shipping information, correct?”</p><p>“...yes sir.”</p><p>“Do you...remember seeing anything concerning, about dust shipments in Mistral?”</p><p>“Mistral, sir?” Sunny frowned, turning back to face the man with one hand still on the doorknob. The General was still standing at his desk, looking down at it and tapping a finger on it.</p><p> </p><p>Tilting his head in thought, Sunny wracked his memory. Dust shipments had been travelling out to Mistral in increased amounts since Beacon, but it had just been assumed that the Mistralian Military was stockpiling just in case of danger. It hadn’t been flagged as important, so neither he nor Weiss had given it much attention. It seemed standard.</p><p>“Large shipments, sir. Since Beacon. I wouldn’t say concerning, but that’s all that comes to mind.”</p><p>“I see. Would you mind using your last day of clearance to send me those reports, Sunny?” Ironwood didn’t look up from his desk, but Sunny could <em> hear </em> the tone shift in the man’s voice, as it went slightly colder and more stern. It was <em> almost </em>a direct order, but Ironwood wasn’t able to make it one, considering…</p><p>“That’s leaking confidential corporate data, sir.”</p><p>“Yes. Of course.” Ironwood nodded after a pause, before turning to look out over the windows without sparing Sunny a glance. “Silly of me to forget that.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding to the General, Sunny left the man’s office and closed the door behind him, before standing there in thought. Whatever his own feelings for the General might be, the man had good instincts, and if he had concerns about Mistral then it was Winter that was sending him reports of those concerns. She’d been there for weeks now, and she’d never led the General wrong in the past. But the General...had been making mistakes. Plenty of them. Granted, it didn’t help that a decent part of Sunny’s role in the plan was to <em> deliberately </em>undermine the man and place doubts in his reputation, since falling trust from the Atlesian Elite likely wasn’t doing the man’s paranoia any favours, but even without that he’d been making decisions that had set off the occasional alarm bell in Sunny’s and Kirian’s minds.</p><p>There was also the fact that Sunny had been sending pretty much every bit of information he could get his hands on through to Kirian and Zav, <em> including </em> shipping information in regards to Mistral. And neither of them had seen anything too concerning about it except for the simple increase in shipments. They were two of the smartest people Sunny knew, with Kirian only slightly above Weiss, who had <em> also </em>seen the information but hadn’t brought it up.</p><p>...if he passed the information on to Ironwood, he really wouldn’t be sacrificing anything, and he’d been gaining trust from the man, by essentially spying on the SDC on his personal behalf.<br/>Who knows, having the private trust of the most powerful person in the city might just come in handy. Ironwood respected Sunny, and trusted his character, the man had practically groomed Sunny to be a Specialist since his first days in the Academy.</p><p>So...wouldn’t hurt to have the man’s personal trust.</p><p> </p><p>But all the same. This was a strange paranoia, even for the General.</p><p> </p><p>Slowly, Sunny pulled his scroll out from his pocket and pulled up the correct reports that he’d saved from the SDC servers, before hesitating only for a moment longer and sending them through to Ironwood.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The thought was so utterly sarcastic and sardonic that Sunny rolled his eyes at himself, before sending a message through to Kirian and Zav telling what he’d just done, and then immediately heading back to his quarters to flop down onto his bed, asleep in moments.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>The sound of his scroll woke him up. He was tempted to ignore it, he could feel in his body that he hadn’t had <em> nearly </em>enough sleep, but he was a soldier, not just another teenager, so he snatched it from his bedside table and answered it.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>
  <em> “Sunny, It’s...Weiss.” </em>
</p><p>“Weiss?” Sunny blinked, immediately awake, before checking the time. It was early-evening, so he’d technically been asleep most of the day. “What’s up?</p><p><em> “I need your help. If you can give it.” </em>Her voice was quiet, as if she was whispering into her scroll, and there was an edge of nervousness to it that immediately had him concerned.</p><p>“Anything, you know that. What’s wrong?”</p><p>
  <em> “I...need your help getting out of Atlas. But I have to do it without my father finding out, so I can’t take any regular airships. Can you help me?” </em>
</p><p>Pausing in surprise, Sunny sat up properly and ran a hand through his hair. “Out of Atlas? The city, or the <em> country </em>?”</p><p>
  <em> “...Mistral. I need to get to my sister. I’m serious, can you help me? Please, Sunny.” </em>
</p><p>“It’s okay, you’re okay. I can help.” Mulling over it for a few moments as he attempted to come up with any ideas, he raised his eyebrows when he realised it was actually <em> shockingly </em>simple, it just meant committing three very severe crimes. “Can you get to the central military command building?”</p><p>
  <em> “Are you serious? I...I can get there, but then what? I can’t just walk in and get on an airship.” </em>
</p><p>“Well, no. Not normally. But…” Sunny stood from his bed and left his quarters quickly, still in his sleepwear, and kicked Kirian’s door to wake him up and get his attention. Just as he hoped, he heard a loud tired groan come from inside. “I happen to have one teammate in the R&amp;D Department who can get onto their secure airstrip, and another who...can control minds, and almost certainly knows a pilot willing to sneak you out.”</p><p>
  <em> “...that’s...Sunny, I couldn’t ask you three to do that for me. You’d be court martialed if anyone found out.” </em>
</p><p>“Weiss, I’ve been wishing with all I am that I could help you ever since we both arrived back in this god forsaken city. Let me help you now. I promise it’ll be alright.” Sunny spoke as firmly and as reassuring as possible, raising a hand to silence Kirian as the boy opened his door with a glare.</p><p>Frowning at the serious expression on Sunny’s face, and the fact the man was on his scroll, Kirian stayed silent and took Sunny’s expression as a sign to get dressed as quickly as possible.</p><p>There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Sunny could practically <em> feel </em>the nervousness and hesitation radiating through it, before Weiss spoke again in an impossibly quiet voice.</p><p>
  <em> “Are you sure?” </em>
</p><p>“Positive. How soon?”</p><p>
  <em> “I...two hours, if that’s not too soon.” </em>
</p><p>“That, we can do. Meet us just outside the main complex in two hours. We’ll get you out of here.”</p><p>
  <em> “...Sunny...thank you.” </em>
</p><p>“See you soon.”</p><p> </p><p>Sunny hung up to end the call, and Kirian took the opportunity to start asking every question, following Sunny as he went back to his quarters to get dressed as well.</p><p>“Okay, explain. Who? What? Huh? What are we doing?”</p><p>“We’re helping to sneak Weiss out of the city and onto an airship to Mistral by using your credentials onto the R&amp;D Private airstrip, Zav’s Semblance and contacts, and my access to the military shipment manifests.” Sunny rattled off casually and bluntly as he quickly got dressed, not giving Kirian time to reply before grabbing his scroll back up to call Zav, who answered after only a couple of rings.</p><p>
  <em> “Sunny? What’s up?” </em>
</p><p>“I...need a favour. And you’re not going to feel comfortable with it until I explain.”</p><p>
  <em> “...what do you need?” </em>
</p><p>“First thing’s first; we need to get Weiss out of Atlas and on the way to Mistral in two hours. I need you up here in Atlas, also I’m willing to bet you know a guy who knows a guy who knows a pilot willing to take a bribe to get her out of here <em> without </em>her existence appearing on any papers.”</p><p>There was a long <em> long </em>pause on the other side of the line as Zav snatched up his tablet and began to flick through his vast web of contacts and people of interest, clicking his tongue as he scrolled through the different pilots and smugglers that he knew. Finding one who might work, he let out a breath loud enough for Sunny to hear.</p><p>
  <em> “I’ve got one, but he’s expensive. A bit of a rip-off frankly, but he’s the only one currently in the city that might work. What’s the part I’m not going to be comfortable with?” </em>
</p><p>“I’m...going to need you to use your Semblance to get her through the military complex and onto the airfield. So I need you to get her through the two security checkpoints.”</p><p> </p><p>The next pause was longer, which Sunny predicted that it would be. Zav hated using his Semblance, <em> hated </em> it, only ever using it when it was vital, the only option, or an emergency. It was a trait Sunny actually respected <em> profoundly </em> , given that it was by far the most powerful Semblance on team SPKZ, and in a lesser man’s hands it would be a horrific tool.<br/>But Zavraii Illyas was <em> not </em>a lesser man.</p><p>Which is why, after a pause to think about it, Zav’s voice was firm.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Okay. For Weiss, I will. Let me call my guy. When and where?” </em>
</p><p>“Thank you Zav. We’re meeting her outside the main complex in two hours, and getting her out from the R&amp;D Airstrip.”</p><p>
  <em> “Got it.” </em>
</p><p>The line went dead as Zav promptly hung up, and once Sunny was off the phone again Kirian took the opportunity to finally voice his own opinions of what was happening.</p><p>“Sunny, are you-”</p><p>“Don’t.” Sunny gave him a firm glare, which promptly shut him up. “I’m doing this for her. She’s dying here. We’re all dying, here. But the three of us, and most of the others...we’re stuck. If even just <em> one </em>of us can get out and go back to fighting, we’re helping them.”</p><p> </p><p>Mulling over it for a few moments, Kirian sighed and nodded, going back to his room to grab his own scroll and holster his pistols on his belt, before rejoining Sunny out in the corridor, the other man leading the way out through the corridors. They emerged into the cold evening air, though none of them even flinched, and made their way to the main entrance onto the complex to wait.</p><p>Zav arrived before Weiss did, bundled up in his trademark vested coat, and he joined the other two quietly before looking up at the massive structure that housed the academy inside of its walls, along with the central military command, and numerous other divisions.</p><p>“Haven’t been back here in a while.”</p><p>“Lucky you, we live <em> and work </em>here now.” Kirian raised an eyebrow, giving Zav a small grin. “There are days I don’t actually step outside of the fence at all.”</p><p>“I’d rather die.” Zav scrunched up his nose, before giving a stressed sigh. “So, we’re doing this, huh? You realise what might happen to us if we get caught.”</p><p>Nodding, Sunny looked down at the ground and scuffed his boot in thought. “Yep. But it’s worth it.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Zav nodded. “It is.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking between the two of them, Kirian sucked in a breath and let it out heavily, looking up at the sky in stressed resignation and shrugging. If they got caught, it was a court martial for himself and Sunny, and military prison for Zavraii. But they’d each be thrown in prison for what they did on a daily basis anyway, with the sheer amount of military and corporate information they were stealing. Those were laws they were breaking in the hope of one day being able to help people with what they were collecting.</p><p>Breaking more laws to <em> actually </em>help someone right in front of them….Kirian could get behind that.</p><p>He just wouldn’t admit it out loud.</p><p>The two hour mark had just about passed when Weiss rounded the corner, holding one single large briefcase and every muscle held tight and tense as she quickly made her way over to them. When Sunny stepped forward to check on her, he had to blink and tense as she immediately threw herself into his arms, and he immediately wrapped her up in a tight and comforting hug. The girl was shivering, terrified and anxious, but she was...nice, to hold. For the first time.</p><p>And she clearly found his high warmth comforting against the evening chill, as she held on for a few moments before letting go and stepping back, giving all three of them a large but worried smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, you three. You don’t know...how much this means to me.” Looking away for a moment, Weiss took in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, before grabbing her briefcase from the ground again and holding it. “You don’t have to do all this.”</p><p>“Yeah, we do.” Zav gave her a smile and a friendly wink, and it was enough that her shoulders slightly relaxed. “Come on, let’s get you out of this hellhole. My pilot should be waiting in hanger three.”</p><p>“You work fast.” Kirian raised his eyebrows, only to roll his eyes when Zav looked over at him with a mock-offended look.</p><p>“I’m a professional, just like you two. Just because I don’t wear a fancy uniform and go to fancy parties doesn’t mean I’m disappointing.”</p><p>“You’re right, those <em> aren’t </em>the reasons why.” Kirian snarked back as the group stepped into the central courtyard of the military base, and began to head over to the right doors.</p><p> </p><p>The banter was enough that Weiss relaxed slightly, but she still grabbed Sunny’s hand just for the comfort, and he looked down in surprise for a moment before giving it a squeeze and guiding her along. Kirian tagged his scroll to open the door to the primary complex, and they began to head through until they reached the hangers. The hangers were secured by a manned security checkpoint, and not a pass lock, and when they rounded the corner and saw it both Kirian and Sunny looked to Zav.</p><p> </p><p>Taking in a deep breath and letting it out as a sigh, Zav looked to the others with a serious expression. “As soon as the door opens, go through and don’t stop walking no matter what until I catch up, got it?”</p><p> </p><p>Sunny and Kirian nodded immediately, meanwhile Weiss hesitated in confusion before nodding as well, looking at Sunny and Kirian and taking confidence from their own. Giving them each one more firm look to press in the point, Zav walked along the corridor until he reached the checkpoint, where the guard on shift at the console immediately struck him up in concerned and suspicious conversation, questioning how he got in and what he wanted.</p><p>But less than a handful of words later, the man had a smile on his face and a glazed look in his eyes as he pressed the button to unlock the door to the hangers, and the other three quickly walked past and through, not stopping down the corridor until Zav jogged up behind them and rejoined them.</p><p>Blinking in bewilderment, Weiss looked over at him. “How did you <em> do </em>that?”</p><p> </p><p>Instead of answering, Zav waved it off with a gesture from his hand and a shrug, before stepping forward to walk ahead of the group in case they encountered anybody else. There were a few other guards on duty, but each time one noticed them and would go to say something Zav would speak a few quiet words to them that the others couldn’t hear, and they’d get the same distant look on their face, and wouldn’t object or react any further as the group walked past.</p><p>Eventually they reached hangar three, the private hangar for the R&amp;D Department, and Kirian tagged his pass to unlock the door, stepping aside as it slid open with a hiss. Stepping inside, an airjet was indeed ready and waiting, a pilot in the regular uniform waiting by it and leaning casually before standing up when he noticed Zav.</p><p>Gesturing for the others to stay back for a bit, Zav stepped forward and clasped the man’s hand, pulling him into a one-armed hug and chatting with him with a friendly smile, but clearly not using his Semblance.</p><p> </p><p>Kirian glanced over their shoulders towards the door and hummed. “I’ll keep an eye out, just in case.”</p><p>“Got it.” Sunny glanced at him, and Kirian nodded at them both before stepping away, only to stop when Weiss put a hand on his arm gently.</p><p>“Thank you, Kirian. Truly.”</p><p>“...you’re welcome, Weiss. Be safe.” Kirian gave a respectful and friendly nod, as friendly as he was capable of, and stepped outside, the door closing behind him.</p><p> </p><p>Zav finished his conversation with the pilot and made his way over, returning with his hands in his pockets and a successful smile on his face. “He’s happy to help, but...he’s not cheap.”</p><p>“I’m prepared for that.” Weiss nodded, kneeling down with her briefcase and opening it for a moment, retrieving a wad of lien and closing the case again, straightening.</p><p> </p><p>Looking down at the wad of cash, Zav’s eyebrows raised and he made a curious and slightly amused hum in his throat, before shaking his head. “Oh you rich people. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Be safe Weiss, we’ll keep an eye on the fort here, don’t you worry!”</p><p>Giving her a wink, Zav stepped past and paused when Weiss took his hand in gratitude, and she gave him a soft smile. “Thanks Zavraii...Zav. For everything.”</p><p>“Weiss darling..” Zav squeezed her hand for a moment before giving her a cocky wink. “I’ve barely <em>started</em>. You take care now.”</p><p> </p><p>Leaving just Weiss and Sunny alone.</p><p> </p><p>Taking in a deep breath, Sunny looked at her gently. “I’m sorry that things are ending the way that they are. You’re going to Winter?”</p><p>“I am. It’s the best place for me, now. I should have gotten out of here sooner.” Weiss nodded sadly, looking down and fidgeting with the handle of her case. She looked up again after a moment and met his eyes. “Will you be okay? They’re...sending you into combat soon now, aren’t they.”</p><p>“Yes. I’m being sent to the Deep Freeze. But I’ll be okay.” Sunny rushed to reassure her when her eyes widened in fear and concern, and he placed a hand on her arm. “I’m going to be just fine. You’re heading somewhere just as dangerous.”</p><p>Thinking over it for a moment and realising he was right, Weiss nodded sadly, before slowly stepping forward and leaning up to press her lips to his cheek softly, resting her one free hand on his other cheek gently. “Thank you Sunny, for absolutely everything. For saving me.”</p><p> </p><p>Smiling, Sunny reached up with a hand and placed it on top of hers, before lifting it from his cheek and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it. Weiss’s eyes sparkled, and a truly vulnerable small smile appeared on her lips. They stayed close for a moment, closer than they’d ever been before, Sunny holding her hand in his softly as she gently rested her head on his chest. But eventually it was time for her to go, no matter how patient the pilot seemed willing to be, and Sunny reached with his free hand and placed it on her cheek to guide her to look up from his chest. Weiss gave him a sad smile as she met his eyes again, and leant into the touch, closing her eyes at the feel of his warm fingers pressed gently against her impossibly soft skin.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, Sunny. I’ll never forget this.” It was a whisper, as she slowly pulled her hand from his and reached into her pocket to retrieve the lien again, fidgeting with it in preparation to hand it over. She swallowed to prevent a sad tear from escaping, but they both knew she was holding one back, and after a moment she failed and it began to make its way down her cheek.</p><p>“If you ever come back, come find me.” Whispering back, not wanting to speak any louder, Sunny reached up with his hand again and gently wiped away her tear with his thumb, giving her a sad smile before gently leaning down and pressing his lips to her forehead.</p><p>“I will. I promise I will. And maybe...things can be different, by then.”</p><p>“...different?”</p><p>“Yes.” Weiss smiled, and without her normal Atlesian mask it was a smile <em> full </em>of feeling. But she seemed unable to say what she really meant, instead simply stepping back and taking a deep breath. “Different.”</p><p> </p><p>Without another word, she turned and made her way over to the pilot, the two sharing some quick quiet words as she handed over the bundle of lien and he counted it out. Sunny watched as the pilot nodded, and Weiss immediately hopped up the ramp into the back of the airjet, before turning one more time and locking eyes with him.</p><p>As the ramp closed, she gave him a soft wave, and he smiled sadly in return, before the ramp finished closing shut and she was out of sight.</p><p>The engines kicked into throttle, and in only a few moments the jet was lifting from the hangar and vanishing out into the surprisingly clear night sky.</p><p> </p><p>Standing and watching the jet vanish, Sunny nodded to himself and turned, with all the willpower and discipline of the soldier he knew he had to be, and he made his way out of the hangar, his friends falling in step beside him.</p><p> </p><p>“So, one less problem to worry about. She’s safe now.” Zav had his hands behind his back as he walked, and he nodded in satisfaction at the thought.</p><p>“For now. But Mistral is still in danger. We need to start looking closer at the shipping information.” Frowning, Kirian was already thinking over it, running the numbers in his head as they walked. “Something must be off, we just aren’t seeing it.”</p><p>“Yet” Zav corrected, and Kirian glanced over at him before giving a nod of his own.</p><p>“Yes. Yet.”</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Sunny remained silent, even as Zav used his Semblance to get them past the checkpoints again and then out into the night sky, where he immediately looked in the direction where Weiss had vanished into.</p><p>Nobody was safe. Not right now.</p><p>But Team SPKZ were going to do their best to change that. And no matter how many setbacks they might suffer with their larger plan, they were still able to help people one person at a time.</p><p>So they were going to start <em> now. </em></p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And so is the last we see of SPKZ for Red Thread Noose!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Rescuing Hope</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lily and Alice are left with so few pieces left to pick up after the loss of half their team, and while Lily boasts to be unbreakable Alice is incapable of making such a claim. But as they force themselves to confront their fears, they find one small flicker of hope that was hiding in the infinite shadows of the cold Mistral forests.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Two chapters in one day?? Including the finale?? What is this??</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Lillian’s breaths came out in ragged pants as she drove her fists into the punching bag over and over again, sweat pouring down her face and neck as she bounced lightly on her feet, the impacts from her practiced and powerful blows sending the bag swinging with satisfying thumps sounding throughout the training room.<br/>
Skidding back half a step, Lily spun on her left foot and drove her other right into the bag with her full strength, the sheer strength behind her kick forming a deep dent and rattling the chains it was hanging by, but she was spinning back in and smashing her fists into it again even before the bag had time to settle.</p><p>Her blood was pumping hot from the exertion, with her long blonde hair tied back in a tight ponytail to keep it out of the way, and dressed in only a pair of white sweatpants, light blue sports bra, and her training wraps around her hands, she was a form of pure rippling muscle and elegant strength as she got close to bursting the bag and breaking it from it’s chains when she drove her leg into it in a sweeping crescent.</p><p> </p><p>Her armour and swords were in their normal display case nearby, but she hadn’t worn them for a month, ever since she’d been brought back to Haven unconscious in the back of the airship, having passed out from blood loss barely moments after activating the distress beacon over Lucy’s body. The tears and damage to her armour had been mended, along with her swords which had been sharpened, but she hadn’t touched them from the moment she returned from the hospital after her recovery.</p><p>The damage to her ribs and pelvis had been brutal, and if it hadn’t been for her Semblance she surely would have died. Whenever something stung from a still sore muscle being moved, or the freshly healed bones straining, she got the same flashes of red eyes and black feathers. It was apparently a normal occurrence, trauma was a powerful force, but she didn’t react to it traditionally.</p><p>There was no such thing as the 'flight' response, in Lillian Vale. Any hope of it existing had been trained out of her, and now only 'fight' remained. When her training hurt and she saw those eyes, she trained harder. Creating a loop that usually led to something like what was about to happen.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes as the muscles in her lower back strained from her twisting, Lillian let out a growl of adrenaline and drove her fist into the deep dent she’d formed, and the bag finally gave out, the leather tearing and the chain holding it up breaking and sending the bag dropping to the ground and skidding away from the impact.</p><p>Standing and sucking in deep breaths, her eyes still closed, Lily ran the back of her hand along her face to clear the sweat before gradually relaxing, making sure her muscles soothed one by one so that none stitched, and she rolled her shoulders as she opened her eyes again. Adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, and she cracked the knuckles of her right hand as she turned and snatched up her water bottle from the weight bench it was resting on, drinking half of it in only a few gulps before spinning the lid back on and carelessly tossing it away, grabbing her towel from the bench and starting to wipe herself down.</p><p>This wasn’t the first bit of training equipment she’d broken in the past week since she’d been declared recuperated enough to return to training. She was pushing herself beyond what traditional gym equipment were able to handle, beyond what other Huntsmen considered reasonable, but she couldn’t stop.</p><p>Glancing over at her armor in its case, her eyes knew exactly where to look to find the lingering signs of scratches from Kakra’s vicious talons, and her grip on the towel in her hands tightened.</p><p> </p><p>Wrapping her towel around her shoulders, she walked over and easily lifted the punching bag, carrying it over to a corner of the room to flop it down. Grabbing her scroll from her pocket, she typed out a message to her assistant, before her thumb paused over the send button.</p><p>When she’d been discharged from the hospital and returned home for her recuperation, her mother had insisted that one of the house staff be her personal assistant to help take care of her matters while she continued her recovery and wasn’t able to do some of the things she had been easily able to before, such as heading into town to grab things from the shops, and also to help keep her appointments. Most of the correspondence was filtered through her mandatory assistant as well, who did a wonderful job of making sure that the only messages of condolences that came through were the genuine ones from people she knew.</p><p>But she still hated it. She hated being helped, leaning on anybody. It didn’t suit her, it felt alien and wrong, but she still wasn’t quite back to her full form and wouldn’t be for a while longer. The damage to her bones and muscles had truly been terrifying, and she’d faced a common problem that plagued Huntsmen that were in the field, which was that her aura had started to repair her broken bones and torn muscles before she’d been given medical treatment...but had repaired them <em> wrong. </em>Some of the bones in her pelvis had needed to be broken again and reset, and plenty of her muscles hadn’t been in any better state.</p><p>She was medically considered out of combat commission for the foreseeable future.</p><p>Not that there was anything she was being kept from, anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Team LAVA had <em>technically</em> left Haven unofficially, on the personal request of Lionheart, so they weren’t on any sort of sanctioned mission. Official records were forced to state that they’d gone rogue, and they’d returned one person down and another MIA.</p><p>Because Lucy was dead. She was dead.</p><p>Lily closed her eyes as the thought hit her all over again, and the hand holding her scroll dropped down by her side. Lucy was dead, and Angel was gone.</p><p>Just...gone. Unlike Lucy, there wasn’t even anything left of Angel to bury.</p><p> </p><p>Lily snapped out of it slightly when she heard the creaking of metal, and she quickly relaxed her grip on her scroll which had been tightening and threatening to break it, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly before she opened her eyes again, forcing herself not to cry again.</p><p>She’d cried when she woke up. That was her done for the day.</p><p>She got <em>one</em> cry a day. That was the rule she’d set for herself.</p><p> </p><p>Sucking in another deep breath, she grabbed her towel from around her neck and pressed it to her face for a few moments, holding her breath until she could feel her heart pounding in her chest before letting it out into the towel, then wiping her face, her composure returning as she did so and she could re-focus and look back down at the unfinished message on her scroll.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Hey Aurum, I know it’s early so don’t worry about this until later, but I broke another gym bag, and I’ll need a replacement before my workout tomorrow.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Pressing send, Lily slid it back into her pocket and made her way out of the gym, her workout done for the day, and snatching up her water bottle from where she’d tossed it on her way out. Hopping her way up the stairs, she gave a warm but strained smile to one of the maids she passed on the way, who gave her the same look everyone was giving her;</p><p>Sympathy, but trying to hide it.</p><p>It had frustrated her at first, and it was a frustration she didn’t understand <em> why </em>it was eating away at her, but she had since resigned to it. It was the best way people could convey what they felt, and the level of sympathy and pity they felt escaped the ability for words to describe or expression to convey. But they were trying, so she swallowed and accepted it, giving them the kindness of seeming to appreciate it.</p><p>Stepping into her large room, she closed the door behind her and clicked the lock, before tossing her gym towel into the laundry hamper just inside of her bathroom door, and stripping herself off as she finished walking the rest of the way, not surprised when she had a message from Aurum already on her scroll when she took it from her pocket to strip out of her pants.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Of course, Miss Lillian. I shall have it ordered and collected by this afternoon. And I shall keep it secret from your therapist that you’re still over-exerting as much as you are.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, Lily looked up from her scroll and looked at herself in her bathroom mirror, unable to help but move her eyes over the vicious scars now criss-crossing her body. While she’d had scars before the fight with Kakra, since she’d been a champion fighter and an experienced Huntress before that point, her body now shimmered with the skin of several large ones across her skin that the monster’s talons and teeth had torn into her.</p><p>They weren’t noticeable while she was clothed, since her neck and face had been spared, but anything less than fully clothed and they began to appear and become truly visible, with slashes in her thighs, along her back, four deep gashes down the front of her torso from a particularly accurate slash of talons, and a gash from the right side of her collarbone down diagonally across her cleavage and ending halfway down her left ribcage. Her back was a mess of scratches as well, and her left shoulder bore the scars of vicious teeth sinking right into her flesh.</p><p>It wasn’t the scars themselves that bothered her, she’d already accepted a life of injuries and scars when she was a child barely able to read and her training had already begun, but the memories and story behind them haunted her. Every scar came with the memory of how it happened, so as her eyes travelled over her body she could see the tale of the fight from start to finish, the images and sensations flashing into her mind and paralysing her, freezing her in place and unable to stop her eyes from looking and her mind from remembering.</p><p>The crashing memory of being thrown through the buildings finally had her snap out of it as the phantom pain in her back throbbed, and she put her hands over her face and groaned into them in frustration. It was so <em> infuriating </em>to be this way.</p><p>She was a Vale, dammit.</p><p> </p><p>But that didn’t change the fact she’d never see Lucy or Angel ever again.</p><p> </p><p>The thought once again slugged into her gut, and she had to gasp in air as she slumped against her bathroom counter, her hands resting on it to hold up her weight and balance as she stared wide eyed down at the sink. The ice in her system and the blurriness in her eyes only lasted a few moments before she snarled in frustration at herself again and coughed it out.</p><p>They may be gone, but this isn’t what they’d want her to do.</p><p> </p><p>Angel, her partner, her best friend, would want her to look after herself, then stand up tall and raise her head the moment she was able to again.</p><p>And Lucy, her friend, her <em> leader, </em> would want her strong and ready. She’d want her to keep going. To finish the job.</p><p>Sucking in another breath and letting it out slowly, she nodded to herself before pushing up and straightening, looking down at her scroll which was still in her hand, and typing out her response.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Please tell me I don’t have any appointments today.’ </em>
</p><p>The response was almost immediate, and Lily predicted it was likely because Aurum was in the back of the car and on his way, ready to come into work despite the ungodly early hour, the sun barely having risen. But he was like that.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Your schedule is clear, Miss Lillian. You were due for another physiotherapy session, but I suspect you’ve taken care of that yourself this morning in your particular way.’ </em>
</p><p>She couldn’t help but give a small grin down at her phone. The man had figured out early on not to treat her like she was one of her parents, or her brother. His sass and sarcasm was a welcome relief compared to the stuffy way a lot of people addressed her with just because of who she was.</p><p> </p><p>Lillian Vale, heir to Diamond Bastion Arms, the largest weapons manufacturer outside of the Atlesian military.</p><p>Lillian Vale, the strongest fighter Haven had seen in a generation.</p><p>Lillian Vale, the veteran of the Battle Of Beacon.</p><p> </p><p>Lillian Vale, one of the only two members of her team to return home from the wilds, broken and beaten.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes again, she let out a shaky breath in a desire to remain calm, focusing for a moment before opening her eyes again and looking down at her scroll.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Thanks Aurum. I’ve no business I feel I need to take care of today, please don’t feel any rush or pressure. Take it easy today.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Tossing her scroll only her bathroom counter, she finished stripping and hopped into her shower, the water scalding hot and the pressure high as she stood underneath the scorching torrent with her eyes closed. Long showers were one of the few indulgences she allowed herself, so she took time washing her hair and scrubbing herself as clean as possible. Though she spent plenty of it just leaning against the tiled wall with her eyes closed, lost in the thoughts that hurt like weights to her chest.</p><p>An unknown amount of time later, she turned off the water and stepped out, quickly drying herself and throwing on basic clothes for the day, able to get away with just a tshirt, jeans, and her comfiest boots. It wasn’t like she had any official business in her current days, not even at the company despite her requests to be allowed to get back to at least <em> some </em> kind of work. But even though her father was more than supportive of her returning to work, her mother opposed her wish to busy herself at every turn.<br/>
And while Lucas was a powerful and decisive man, his wife Marian had a way of looking at him that made it <em> very </em>clear she was calling the shots on a particular issue. She’d almost never played that card when it came to Lillian, letting Lucas dote on the girl just as much as she doted on Lillian’s brother Omat, but this was one thing had insisted on, and Lucas had acquiesced to it.</p><p>Which left Lillian with nothing to do to fill her days except work-out, train, read, and wander the city, though she did the latter rarely due to the looks she was still getting, generally only leaving the house when her friends invited her and so she knew they’d be around her. Her ex-boyfriend Neptune had been there for her as much as he could, but there was only so much he could do while busy with his own studies and training, and she had other friends out in the city who were trying their best.</p><p>Plenty of them had lost friends and teammates at the Fall Of Beacon. So they knew how it felt. What she was going through.<br/>
It had been...comforting, those conversations and quiet nights in town had done more good for her than a thousand appointments with her grief counselor could ever hope to do.</p><p>Her scroll buzzed on her vanity as she was tying her hair back in its usual braids, and she snatched it up, raising an eyebrow at the message from Aurum that had come through.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘Miss Vale, even on your most complicated days, working for you is always easy. I’m only ever a message or call away for whatever you might need. I shall be at the office should you need me.’ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Reading it over again, her expression softened, and she slid her scroll into her pocket without replying, stretching her arms above her head as she realised she had nothing to do for the day, which meant a day of reading and studying, and eventually training.</p><p>But, for now, breakfast.</p><p>Standing up and spinning to stretch out her legs, she left her room and closed the door behind her, sliding the latch that let the staff know it was alright for them to go in and clean if they reached this section of the manor. Making her way down to the kitchen, she raised an eyebrow when a proper hot breakfast was waiting for her, and she couldn’t help but give a small smile when she sat at the dining table and began to eat. Aurum had clearly either messaged or called the kitchens to let them know she’d likely just finished her morning workout and would be down soon.</p><p>Shaking her head with an appreciative smile for the man, she was halfway through her meal when she stopped, her eyes lingering at a certain empty spot of the dining table, and she put down her knife and fork slowly. An alarm bell began to ring in her mind, and she swore under her breath as she stood and quickly made her way into the kitchens, getting the attention of one of the two cooks.</p><p> </p><p>“Has Alice been down and had her usual breakfast yet?”</p><p>“No, Miss Vale.” The cook frowned in thought, shaking his head. “We’ve been expecting her.”</p><p> </p><p>Swearing again, Lillian thanked the man and immediately left the kitchen at a brisk walk, hopping up the stairs two at a time and briskly making her way to the room Alice had been staying in ever since they’d returned from the Fall Of Beacon, the Vale mansion having turned into almost a central base of operations for Team LAVA, with its numerous spare bedrooms and the large training rooms.</p><p>And so the two of them had returned back to here after getting out of hospital.</p><p>Knocking on Alice’s closed door, Lillian tapped her foot nervously, staring at the closed door apprehensively as she waited.</p><p>“Alice! Let me in. You’ve got until the count of ten to either groan, or grab the door yourself.”</p><p> </p><p>There was no response from inside, and Lillian bit the inside of her cheek before grabbing the handle and turning it, pushing the door open and glancing inside. It was empty, no sign of Alice or any disturbances implying she’d been moving around.</p><p>It took one glance at the bed, sheets still up and clearly unused for the night, for Lillian to swear loudly and turn, storming her way out of Alice’s room and setting off at a jog towards her own, ducking into her room just long enough to change her belt from a casual one to one of her combat ones, and then throwing on one of her thicker jackets. Taking the stairs three at a time as she went down into the training room, she paused outside of the display case for only a moment before her sense of duty overpowered her fear, and she opened it to grab one of her swords and slide it into the sheath on her belt.</p><p>Closing the case without looking at her armour, she took off out of the house at a run, grabbing her scroll from her pocket as she went and scrolling through her contacts until she found her driver Troy, and calling.</p><p>The man answered after only a few rings, but his voice was tired and groggy, so even though he’d been awake he was clearly only just out of bed.</p><p>
  <em> “Hey Lily, what’s up?” </em>
</p><p>“Troy I need you, I promise I’ll pay you extra but I need you at the house as soon as you can, it’s an emergency.”</p><p>Troy snapped further awake immediately, and Lily could hear as he was clearly moving faster through his small apartment, and she then heard the faint jingling of keys even as the man replied.</p><p>
  <em> “Shit okay, three minutes, promise. Hang tight hon.” </em>
</p><p>The line went dead, and true to word only five minutes later Troy was pulling up in the usual car outside of the house, Lily opening the door even before he’d properly come to a stop and hopping in urgently, looking to a ruffled and unkempt Troy.</p><p>“Get me to the Wisteria District, I’ll give you more specific in a minute.”</p><p>“Wisteria? You sure?”</p><p> </p><p>The Wisteria District was by far one of the most dangerous sections of the city, on one of the lower levels it was kept perpetually in shadow due to the massive amount of foliage and cover from the mountain. It wasn’t <em> quite </em>the home of the criminal underground, but it was where plenty of them played.</p><p>But she nodded all the same, no doubt or hesitation in her eyes, and Troy obeyed, pulling away from the curb outside the mansion gates and pressing on the gas.</p><p>As Troy drove, Lily scrolled through the contacts on her phone again until she found the right number, and she called. It rang out quite a few times, but eventually it was answered by a <em> very </em>groggy and hungover sounding Reese.</p><p>
  <em> “Wassup?” </em>
</p><p>“Where did you guys party last night, Reese?”</p><p>
  <em> “Lily...shit dude, what time is it?” </em>
</p><p>“Reese, just <em> tell </em>me.”</p><p><em>“Fuck, okay, give me a minute.”</em> There was a loud groan as Reese Chloris sat up from her bed and likely wiped her face, trying to jog her cloudy memory. <em>“We ended up at some guy’s flat near Club Parish. Big complex two streets closer to the rocks. You know the club?”</em></p><p>“...I know it. Thanks Reese.”</p><p>
  <em> “Sure, sure. You good?” </em>
</p><p>“I’m good. We’re good. I just needed to know.” Lily put her hand over the speaker as she looked over at Troy. “Club Parish.”</p><p>Troy hesitated for a second, also knowing the club, but when Lily’s eyes steeled he nodded, beginning to tap his hands on the steering wheel nervously as Lily put her scroll back up to her ear just in time to hear Reese speak.</p><p>
  <em> “We still on for tonight?” </em>
</p><p>Lily rolled her eyes. “I’ll get back to you. Go back to sleep.”</p><p>
  <em> “Aight...if you’re sure.” </em>
</p><p>Hanging up, Lily slid her scroll back into her pocket and looked out of the window, Troy knowing her well enough to know that talking to her when she was like this wouldn’t be constructive. But he was worried about her anyway, he had been ever since she’d gotten home.</p><p>Everyone had been.</p><p>It felt like stating the obvious when you say ‘something’s wrong’ with someone who just lost their team leader and best friend. But something <em> was </em>wrong with Lily, and none of them could quite put their finger on it. Not even him, and they’d been closer than close for two years now.</p><p>But he held his tongue, pulling up in front of the run-down and sleazy club, which was little more than a brothel and strip-club pretending it was a fancy establishment.</p><p> </p><p>Taking off her seatbelt, Lily gave Troy a grateful but strained smile. “Thank you, Troy. I owe you.”</p><p>“You want to tell me what we’re doing here?”</p><p>“I can’t, I’m sorry. You need deniability.”</p><p>Frowning in concern at the fact Lily seemed completely serious, Troy sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. But he trusted her. With his life, with his wife’s life, and the life of his unborn son. So he nodded.</p><p>“Want me to wait?”</p><p>“Not close by. Feel free to head to somewhere brighter, but I’m going to need you in about fifteen minutes.”</p><p>“...got it.”</p><p> </p><p>Lily stepped out and closed the door, giving Troy one last stern and reassuring nod, before quickly making her way towards the large apartment block Reese had described, Troy driving away behind her. Looking up at the building, Lily sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, it wasn’t the first time she’d ended up outside of a building like this.</p><p>Tattered, run down, broken windows that were boarded up. The gutter was grimy, the road broken, and the front door ajar.</p><p> </p><p>Rolling her shoulders and her neck, she walked through the broken gate leading to the trash filled yard, and pushed the door open gently with her foot before stepping inside. The stench in the building was overpowering, and she cringed at it for a moment before steeling her mind and continuing on, following any sound or sight of movement. Only a few rooms through on the ground floor she found a man moving around like a zombie, picking up a chair to set it straight near a filthy and garbage-laden coffee table.</p><p>“Excuse me.” Lily got his attention when she was a few paces away, and he immediately perked up, jumping like a startled rabbit, and looked at her as if she was a grimm in the darkness.</p><p>“Whatdya want, beautiful?”</p><p>“Looking for a girl that came here last night. My height, snake faunus, brown hair.” Lily crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow when the man was paying more attention to her chest instead of her words, and she rolled her eyes when her words finally processed.</p><p>He grunted, lazily gesturing to the stairs. “The crew she was with went up, probably to Psych’s pad, third floor.”</p><p> </p><p>Rolling her eyes again at the nickname, Lily nodded and turned away without another word, making her way to the stairs and ignoring the knowledge that the man’s eyes were lingering on her as she moved. The third floor was in an even worse state than the ground, but it was also more occupied, with plenty of passed out figures in the hallways and visible through doorways. Others were conscious and in similar states to the man downstairs, practically zombified in their movements, and they all stared at Lily as she moved through the halls and rooms, completely standing out compared to her surroundings.</p><p>Eventually she found what she was looking for, sticking her head into yet another room and her eyes zoning in on a curled up figure on the floor.</p><p>Alice looked to be a mess, still dressed in her party clothes, but her hair was matted and the slight amount of make-up she used was streaked and ruined as she laid passed out on the ground next to a dried puddle of her own vomit.</p><p>Lily stepped into the room and knelt down next to her teammate, making sure not to step in the vomit, and she reached out to nudge the girl’s shoulder with her hand, getting a quiet groan and whimper combination in response, but Alice’s eyes didn’t open. Nudging her harder, Lily gripped her shoulder properly and shook her, and it was finally enough for Alice’s eye to half-open and look up at her, only for her to blink a few times as the surprise kick-started her brain and woke her up.</p><p>“...Lily?...shit…”</p><p>“Come on. Get up.” Sighing, Lily straightened up before looking around the room, her eyes moving over the figures. “Which one is this ‘Psych’?”</p><p>“Lily, don’t.”</p><p>“Which one, Alice?”</p><p>There was silence from the ground where Alice was still laying, but in her current state her willpower was barely a lit match compared to the radiant sun of Lily’s own, so she surrendered and closed her eyes again without sitting up.</p><p>“Out in the halls. Should be awake. Tall. Bleached hair.”</p><p> </p><p>Leaving Alice to wake up without speaking another word to her, Lily stepped out into the halls and made her way through until she found who she was looking for. The man seemed to be entirely awake and lucid, one of the only people in the building to be that way, as he sat on a torn couch smoking lazily and looking out at the sunrise with the passed out head of a girl on his lap. When Lily entered the room and he looked over, he immediately startled and raised his eyebrows, recognising her immediately.</p><p>“Well shit, Lillian Vale. What’s up, gorgeous?”</p><p>“Stand up, I need a word.” Lily gestured with her head for him to come over, and he raised his eyebrows higher before slowly rising. </p><p>In response to his movement, three of the other more lucid figures in the large room paid attention as well, the three men clearly Psych’s from the way they kept a careful eye on Lily, each of them easily noticing the sword on her hip.<br/>
Psych made his way over, stretching in a way that made his shirt rise enough to show the handgun holstered in his belt, and he closed the distance, casually leaning against the wall near her and giving a small smirk.</p><p>“Never figured a princess like you to be the type to come to my door.”</p><p>“I’m here for Alice, not for you. You’re time dealing to her is done, got it?”</p><p>“Oh? Is that so?” Psych straightened up, his face amused even as his eyes sharpened, locking onto Lily’s firm stare. “Isn’t that her choice?”</p><p>“Not anymore. It’s <em> over. </em>I don’t care if she comes to you begging.”</p><p>“God you’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that. I’ve just been taking good care of her, is all.” Psych laughed, wiggling his eyebrows in amusement and mock-concern as he glanced over at his boys, who were all trying to pretend they weren’t ready to move at a moment’s warning.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Lily could feel it in the air. The tension. Like a drawstring pulling back tighter and tighter. It was in the way Psych looked at her, the way his hand was dangling close to the handgun hidden in his belt, the way the other three men in the room were ready to pounce. She could feel it in herself too, in the way her shoulders were tense, her hands trembling slightly from the adrenaline ready to rush into her system.</p><p>It was all like a cocktail of electricity inside of her.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s had enough. This is the only <em> conversation </em>you and I are having about this.” Lily took a step closer to him, and none of the four men kept pretending the tension didn’t exist, Psych’s eyes hardening while the three others each moved slightly closer. “If I find her bombed out in this part of town again, I’ll come for you, and not to talk.”</p><p>Just as Psych was about to retort, hostility in his eyes, Lily pointed a finger to one of the other three men in the room without even looking at him.</p><p>“Close your hand any tighter on that knife and you lose the arm.”</p><p> </p><p>The man she was pointing at, who happened to be the man closest to her, almost close enough to be in arm’s reach, let go of his grip on the knife in his own belt, but otherwise didn’t relax or move in any particular way, remaining tense and close. The other two men in the room reacted as well, immediately becoming more alert and tense, one of them drumming his fingers on the grip of the gun in his own belt.</p><p>Finally breaking her stare from Psych, Lily looked around the room at the three others with raised eyebrows, silently meeting each of their eyes one by one, before looking back to Psych, who had been watching in tense amusement. When she saw the amused look in his eyes, Lily raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“This isn’t the first time she’s drifted to this part of town. But now I know where she goes. And where you live.”</p><p>“You’re not in the academy anymore, <em> princess </em>. You’re not top shit here. She’s a big girl, she can make her own choices.” Psych narrowed his eyes at her tone, straightening up and his hands at his sides, though his right hand twitched from how close it was to his only protection on his belt.</p><p>“Just like you can make yours. And you’re going to choose to cut her off.” Lily scoffed, glancing down at how close his hand was to the gun in his belt and rolling her eyes. “Oh please. I’m not one of the low-lifes for you to scare. Don’t bother try.”</p><p>“You need to fuck off now, princess. I won’t ask twice. The only reason I’m not throwing you out by that pretty blonde hair is out of...respect...for your loss. Alice told us everything.” Psych thinned his lips, but a small sneer touched the corner of his mouth. “And I mean <em> everything. </em> So instead of forcing, I’m asking. Nicely. She can make her own decisions, and she comes to me.”</p><p> </p><p>The tension in the air continued to grow as Lily stared at Psych, and he stared back, both of them having a hand close to their respective weapons, and while Psych’s fingers twitched every few moments in apprehension, Lily’s hand was openly trembling in adrenaline and anticipation, but her eyes stayed composed and cool.</p><p>No matter how much adrenaline might touch her, she was still a disciplined warrior.</p><p>But she was also still a teenager.</p><p> </p><p>“And if I don’t leave until you agree that you’ll leave her alone…?”</p><p> </p><p>At the glimmer of hostility that sparked in Psych’s eye, it was enough that the man closest to her drew his knife in a quick movement and the other two men readied their weapons. Before any of them had a chance to strike first, Lily sighed, and her fist collided with Psych’s jaw with enough force to send him crunching into the wall. As the man behind her leapt and slashed down at her, Lily’s head whipped to him, and easily caught his wrist in her hand. A gunshot went off as she twisted his arm and numbed his wrist, the knife slipping from his hands, but she had anticipated it and twisted him in such a way that he took the shot, the bullet ripping through his lack of aura and tearing into his gut.</p><p>Pushing him away, she put her foot underneath the coffee table and kicked it up to fly towards the remaining man who hadn’t yet had the reaction time to move, and her left arm shimmered slightly as diamond crystals formed along her skin, allowing her to raise her hand and easily block the bullets that continued to come at her from the other man’s handgun. His aim was actually rather good, but her reflexes were better, and so the bullets harmlessly bounced off her diamond arm and hand as she closed the distance.</p><p>Crushing her diamond fist into his gut, she grabbed the wrist holding the pistol in her other hand and broke it with a simple twist, the gun dropping to the ground. Grabbing hold of the man’s neck with her diamond hand, she spun him down and sent him crashing to the wooden floor with all of her considerable weight and strength, the timbers crunching and splintering under the sheer impact as he coughed up blood from broken ribs.</p><p>The remaining man had recovered from the coffee table being kicked at him, and he swung a large blade at her with a shout, but her own blade was already in her hand as she spun to engage. When she brought up her blade to parry, the diamond-encrusted cutting edge of it sheared through the other man’s sword like butter, and she swung it around to whack him on the back of the head with the pommel, a follow up crescent kick to his temple made sure that he dropped <em> hard </em> with a groan as she kicked the hilt of the broken sword out of his hand.</p><p>Stepping back over, she scooped up the other unconscious man’s gun in her free hand and used her diamond-enhanced strength to break it, dropping it back to the ground and stomping on it to destroy the pieces.</p><p> </p><p>Psych was groggily stumbling to his feet, and Lily made her way over and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, easily lifting him up and slamming him against the wall, the edge of her blade pressed against his throat.</p><p>She didn’t say a word, simply staring at him as the adrenaline pumped through her body, and waited for him to respond.</p><p>They stared each other down, but the sheer force of Lily’s will and the pumping adrenaline in her veins had the sharpness in her eyes break down Psych’s hard stare easily, and the man snarled.</p><p>“<b> <em>Fine.</em> </b>”</p><p>“You’re done with her.”</p><p>“Fine, fucking...whatever, princess. Fuck.”</p><p> </p><p>Nodding in satisfaction, Lily sheathed her sword while still holding him up by his collar. Dropping him, she brought her knee up to impact with his face as he was dropping down, the two momentums crashing together and breaking his nose violently with a horrific crunch.</p><p>Looking around at the remains of the violence, Lily shimmered her left arm back to normal and raised her eyebrows, the adrenaline still pulsing through her and keeping her blood hot. Without speaking, she stepped back to the door and went back out into the hallway, where a very hungover and downed Alice was slumped against the wall, looking at her with a dazed but amused expression.</p><p>“Well hey, looks like we both got our high. Go us.”</p><p> </p><p>Glaring at her for a moment before rolling her eyes, Lily walked past her and grabbed her by the arm as she pulled her scroll from her pocket and messaged Troy. Alice didn’t have the strength or balance to resist as Lily pulled and dragged her to the car when Troy pulled up, opening the back door and carelessly tossing Alice onto the back seat, before slamming the door.</p><p>Opening the passenger door and sitting, Lily looked to Troy with a tired expression, and the man immediately noticed the blood on her shirt. Eyes widening, he looked over his shoulder into the back seat of the car, where Alice was still simply sprawled out loosely.</p><p>“Shit, Lily…”</p><p>“If she throws up, I’ll pay for it. But for now...get us home, yeah?”</p><p>“You got it, you got it.”</p><p>Troy didn’t ask any more questions as he put the car into drive and got them back to the manor as quickly as he could, and the only sounds in the car the entire way were Alice’s mindless groggy mumblings and groaning in the back seat. When they pulled up in front of the house, as close to the front door as they could get, Lily gave Troy an apologetic look as she undid her seatbelt and opened the door.</p><p>“I’m sorry for that, Troy.”</p><p>“Hey don’t even worry, you know it’s never a problem.”</p><p>“...I guess.”</p><p>“Look, come over for dinner soon, yeah? Heva’s worried about you too.”</p><p>“...soon. Promise. But for now...I’ve got something to take care of.”</p><p> </p><p>The conversation ended with each of them giving a grim smile, before Lily closed the passenger door and opened one of the back ones, reaching in and easily dragging Alice out to scoop up and carry, Alice limp and almost delirious in her arms as Lily quickly carried her inside, listening as Troy drove away behind her. She ignored the looks given by any of the staff as she stormed Alice upstairs and into the girl’s room, kicking the door closed behind her as she entered, and then passing through to the bathroom where she simply plopped Alice down in the shower and turned the cold water on full force.</p><p>Alice yelped loudly in surprise as the freezing water splashed onto her, and she immediately snapped to her senses to attempt to scramble out of the way of the torrent, her clothes quickly soaking through.</p><p>“FUCK, Lily. GOD.” Alice yelped and curled up in the corner of the shower stall, shocked into becoming lucid, and she shot Lily a lethal glare. “What the fuck is <b> <em>WRONG </em> </b>with you?”</p><p>Not dignifying it with a direct response, Lily simply stood. “Strip and toss me the clothes, then clean yourself up. I’ll grab you fresh ones.”</p><p>“You’re my fucking <em> mother </em>now?”</p><p>“Just…” Lily sighed, and something in her eyes had Alice blink. “Just do it, okay?”</p><p>Holding her stare for a moment longer, Alice slowly crouched up enough that she could remove her clothes slowly, tossing the soaked and filthy items to Lily who immediately tossed them over into the laundry hamper in the corner. Her clothes were soaked in a mixture of alcohol, vomit, the filth of the drug den, and god knows what else, and if Lily had her way they’d be condemned as unsalvageable and then burned.<br/>
It didn’t surprise her when Alice wasn’t quite mobile or dextrous enough to wash herself off properly, and after watching her struggle to clean herself for a few moments Lily kicked off her boots and knelt down behind her, not seeming to notice the water soaking her through as well as she gently took the washcloth and began to scrub the girl down, not saying a word as Alice sat quietly and let her do it.</p><p>When Lily finished with the washcloth and went to grab the shampoo, Alice finally spoke, sounding completely self-aware but also <em> utterly </em>drained.</p><p>“You didn’t have to do that.”</p><p>“Yeah, I did. It was for your own good.”</p><p>“That’s <em> not </em> your responsibility, I was fine. I can look after myself.”</p><p>“You could before. But right now you can’t. And that’s okay.” Lily sighed, rubbing her hands through Alice’s hair to lather it properly.</p><p> </p><p>Alice didn’t reply, instead curling up tighter and hugging her legs to her chest as Lily washed her hair for her with a grim and sad look on her face. Alice was the light of their team, a being of pure sass and heart and so much love and compassion that if it was possible for such a thing to make someone burst, she would have.</p><p>Now she was this.</p><p>They’d all known she had a problem. She tried to hide it, but she’d slipped up one too many times, and none of her teammates were stupid. But she’d had it under control.</p><p>But nothing was under control anymore. For either of them. Because the one who had kept them on track was dead.</p><p> </p><p>“How are you so okay?” Alice’s voice wasn’t accusatory, but it felt as if she wanted it to be, so Lily paused in her motions.</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>Alice turned around roughly so she could stare into Lily’s eyes, her own filled with grief and craze and exhaustion. “Doesn’t seem like it. You get up every day, you work, you study, you come out with us and have some laughs, then you come home and sleep. Day in, day out. Why can’t you just <em> not </em> be okay? For once in your <b> <em>FUCKING </em> </b>life, Lily.”</p><p>Blinking and sitting back at the outburst, Lily stared at her speechless for a few moments, before her eyes went cold. “It wouldn’t achieve anything. One of us has to be okay.”</p><p>“Says who?!” Alice gestured with her hands helplessly, before dropping them onto her lap. “There isn’t much ‘<em> us’ </em> left, Lily. They’re <em> dead. </em> They’re <em> gone. </em> There’s no mission, there’s no job, there’s no <b> <em>END GAME</em> </b> of this where we can fix it. There’s no <em> victory </em> on the horizon. We’re done. It’s done. They’re <em> dead, </em>Lily.”</p><p>“<b> <em>YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?</em> </b> ” Lily snapped back, raising her voice, which she almost never did, it being a rare enough occurrence that Alice’s eyes widened in surprise. Taking a deep breath to calm down, Lily closed her eyes and looked down, resting her hands on her knees. “I know, Alice. Every moment, I know it. I know we lost. We failed. <em> I </em> failed to protect Angel. At least we got to bury Lucy. I think about it every day. I <b> <em>close my eyes </em> </b>and all I can see is…”</p><p>Lily fell silent, and Alice watched in utter shock as a tear dropped down the diamond girl’s cheek. The sheer amount of emotion and feeling trapped inside of Lily seemed as if it was leaking into her as well, and Alice felt her own eyes tear up.</p><p>“Lily, I…” Alice’s voice was a whisper, and Lily didn’t look up to acknowledge it. “I can barely stand it. I can barely breathe, every moment. But you just seem to…”</p><p>“I know. I know.” Her voice was nearly silent, and another tear dropped from her eyes. In response she grit her teeth and focused on holding them back. She’d had her cry for the day, already. “I don’t have it in me to stop. I have to be ready.”</p><p>“Ready for <em> what? </em>”</p><p>“The next fight.”</p><p> </p><p>The words came out of Lily with such a quiet vulnerability that Alice’s heart lurched in her chest, and tears began to slowly drip from her own eyes. She shuffled closer, close enough their knees were touching, and Alice was again surprised that Lily didn’t pull away. Lily wasn’t particularly affectionate, it came in bursts. The only times she ever let the others really touch her...was in the bad times.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not over, Alice.” Lily shook her head softly. “It’s never over. There’s going to be a next fight. There’s always another one. But when it comes...it’s just going to be the two of us, now.”</p><p>“Lily…”</p><p>“What happened at Beacon is going to come here. I have to be ready to protect our home.” Whispering softly, Lily finally looked up, and Alice could have shattered on the spot from the sheer desperate silence in Lily’s eyes. “And I’m scared that you’ll make me do it alone. I <em> can </em> do it alone, if I have to. But I spent two years so happy and brave that it would be four of us. Now it’s just two of us. And it’s <em> killing </em>me. Because...it’s still coming. It’s just us now, Alice.”</p><p>“...I know. I know.” Choking out a sob, Alice pressed forward until their foreheads were touching, and once again Lily didn’t pull away from the contact. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I can’t stop. If I stop, if I lay awake in my own bed at night sober and quiet. I…”</p><p>“I know. Me too. It’s why I exhaust myself, you know? So I can sleep.” Lily gave a sympathetic smile and a nod, and Alice finally began to understand.</p><p>“...what do we do, Lily?”</p><p>“You’re asking <em> me </em>?”</p><p>“I’m sure as hell not going to ask Lionheart. You’re my friend. My teammate. My sister. All four of you were.”</p><p>“...you <em> really </em> think Lionheart had a hand in this?”</p><p>“I do. I can’t help it. Lucy...Lucy and I never trusted it. And after what happened…” Alice squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head softly, making sure their foreheads were still pressed together gently. “I can <em> feel </em>it.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“....okay?”</p><p>“I trust you.” Lily looked up, her eyes soft and open as they looked into Alice’s own miserable ones. “I should have trusted you both from the start. If I had…”</p><p>“Don’t. Don’t think about that. It doesn’t change anything, no matter how badly we might want to change things we did, we can’t.”</p><p>“<em> Now </em>who’s doing okay?” Lily laughed out a sob, furious at herself as she began to cry again, and Alice immediately pulled her into her arms.</p><p>“I’ve spent two years around three of the smartest and bravest and strongest people I’ll ever have the luck of meeting. I picked up a few things. But it comes and goes.” Alice grinned cheekily even as she still leaked tears, and she pressed a soft kiss to the side of Lily’s head.</p><p> </p><p>The two of them stayed there for a while, easily ignoring the spray of water as they simply held each other and quietly crying in each other’s arms. But eventually they both ran out of tears, and there were no more soft words to say, so they moved. Lily briefly left Alice to get changed into dry clothes again, and Alice took the moment of privacy to dry herself off and stumble into her bedroom to grab some clothes of her own.</p><p>She knew she looked a mess. She was gaunt, and skinnier, and her fine serpentine scales were off-colour from far too much drug use. But she couldn’t stop. If she stopped, if she ever let herself be trapped and thinking…it would kill her.</p><p>So she didn’t. For every hour she was sober, there was an hour that she wasn’t. Drinking, drugs, whatever, it all helped, and plenty of her friends were willing to enable her just to keep her breathing.</p><p>Closing her eyes in thought as she groggily got dressed in a simple shirt and skirt, she flopped back onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing stopping her from moving back in with her father, but if she did it meant having to deal with her father’s particular brand of sympathy and concern.</p><p>Parents all seem to have their own unique kind of sympathy they look at and treat their children with, and while for plenty of people it was comforting, Alice had instead found it unsettling and almost<em> infuriating </em>when exposed to it during her week and a half in hospital.</p><p>So she’d escaped it as soon as she could. In fact she had only spoken to her dad twice since being discharged, the man so overworked that he didn’t even have time to chase her up to open up to him more. But she was used to it, despite living in the same city she was lucky to hear from him once a month unless she made the trip across the entire city to visit him at work.</p><p>Living at the Vale estate wasn’t so bad.</p><p>But it had been better when it was all four of them.</p><p>She didn’t know how to deal with the new silence.</p><p> </p><p>Running her hands over her face, she found a degree of relief in the lingering numbness from her bombing herself out the previous night, even though with every passing high her aura was getting better at fighting it off. It meant requiring larger doses for the same effect, which was going to get dangerous.</p><p>But she didn’t have it in herself to care.</p><p>Eventually her door opened again, and a freshly dressed Lily returned, carrying a tray with a plate of food and two glasses, one filled with juice for Alice and one with a protein shake for Lily. Making her way over to the bed, Lily placed the tray down and crossed her legs underneath herself, sitting on the bed entirely. Alice sat up slowly and raised her eyebrows at the hot food, before smiling softly in appreciation and beginning to eat.</p><p> </p><p>“...thanks.”</p><p>“It’s okay. Figured you’d want to stay here for a while.”</p><p>“Yeah...yeah.”</p><p>Lily sipped her shake quietly, her face unflinching despite the taste since she was more than used to it by now, and she was looking out the nearby window as Alice slowly ate and drank, unable to eat at a regular speed due to the nausea in her stomach from her come-down. But she eventually managed to eat it all, by which time Lily had finished, and they looked at each other quietly.</p><p>“How are you feeling?”</p><p>“Like death.” Alice groaned, wincing and placing a hand on her full stomach which was protesting the food just as loudly as it was appreciating it. “God, I can’t even remember what happened.”</p><p>Humming in concerned acknowledgement, Lily cleared away the tray, placing it on the bedside table, before sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands resting in her lap, facing away from Alice enough that her face was hidden.</p><p>“This has to stop.”</p><p>“I’ll get it back under control once I’m able to, just like always.”</p><p>“It’s been two weeks. Almost every night. At least before today you’d either found a way back here, or been able to call me to come pick you up off the sidewalk somewhere.”</p><p>“Two weeks doesn’t feel like very long.” Alice grumbled, shuffling so she was sitting up against the headboard.</p><p>Lily scoffed. “It wouldn’t when you can’t remember most of it.”</p><p> </p><p>With no retort, Alice could only look down at her lap and cross her arms over her chest, running her tongue along the insides of her cheeks in stubborn thought. When Lily slumped and rested her face in her hands, her elbows on her knees, Alice felt a pang of guilt at just how tired her friend looked.</p><p>It wasn’t really her fault. Lily barely slept anyway. Frankly she barely rested in general at all.</p><p>“You really going to stop my dealers from selling to me?”</p><p>“The more dangerous ones, yes.”</p><p>“...are there non-dangerous drug dealers?”</p><p>“If anyone should be suited to find them, it’s you.”</p><p> </p><p>Flinching at the jab, Alice looked back down at her lap, fidgeting with her fingers as Lily stayed slumped into the palms of her own hands. They looked so different right now, and not purely by appearance. Lily was strong, still looking after herself and eating properly, exercising, keeping regular hours, and she was a wreck. Meanwhile Alice was gaunt, drained, with heavy bags under her eyes, and she was <em> also </em>a wreck.</p><p>Their team had needed four support columns in order to work as beautifully as it did.</p><p>Now with two of them gone, it had all collapsed. Including the last remaining columns.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, Alice picked at the skin around her nails guiltily. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I know, hon. I know.”</p><p>Opening her mouth to reply, Alice winced again at the exhausted tone of Lily’s voice, so she simply closed her mouth and looked away.</p><p>After a few moments, Lily gave her a grim smile. “So, what’s the plan?”</p><p>“I...thought I was going to be asking you.”</p><p>“You and Lucy were the ones that figured things out.” Lily shook her head and sighed, looking down. Alice frowned sadly.</p><p>“Maybe...maybe. But <em> do </em>you have any ideas?”</p><p> </p><p>Lily was quiet for a few moments, but eventually she spoke, her voice contemplative and reserved. “I think we should go back out again.”</p><p>A cold wash of ice went through Alice, and fear at the thought overtook her system enough that she let out a squeak of terror. “You <em> what?! </em>”</p><p>“Not all the way south. God no. But just to the frontier.” Lily shook her head, taking in another deep breath and letting it out. “We can’t let ourselves become scared of it. Trust me, all <em> my </em>gut wants to do at the thought is hide beneath the blankets of my bed. But we can’t let ourselves become afraid.”</p><p>“I’m <em> already </em>afraid.”</p><p>“I’m not saying we go out long term again. Just...on medevac missions. Like we used to.”</p><p>“There’s only <em> two </em>of us now.”</p><p>“I know. We can just tag along with other crews.” Lily shrugged, crossing her hands on her lap, but despite how anxious her posture was, her eyes were set, and confident enough that Alice sat back and thought over it seriously.</p><p> </p><p>It was a fair point. If they stayed, their fear would set in and they’d never find the strength of will to leave the city ever again. Everything in Alice’s whole being begged her to remain within the walls, hell they begged her to avoid being <em> sober </em>at any cost, but…</p><p>But Lucy had always said the same thing, whenever they got afraid. Whenever they wanted to give up. Whenever they wanted to run, or curl up, or collapse, she had always said the same thing.</p><p>
  <em> “The job isn’t done yet.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>And it wasn’t. For a month now they’d been healing, recuperating, and in Alice’s case...falling apart. But the job wasn’t done.</p><p>Her partner, her best friend, would be so furious at her and disappointed in her if she knew Alice was giving in to the instinct to hide and give up. Lucy had seen more in her than that.</p><p> </p><p>The job wasn’t done.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you ready to fight, again?”</p><p>When Alice asked, her voice was confident and set, and Lily looked over into her eyes. Alice’s eyes had found a steel, and it was also in her posture, and Lily straightened up in response. With a firm and confident look, she nodded.</p><p>“Are you?”</p><p>“A little rusty. But, there’s only one way to get back into the swing of it.” Alice slowly stood, before walking over to a large case on the main counter in her room, and looking down at it for a moment. "Lily, you do remember that we're both medically banned from combat situations, right?"</p><p>"I remember, but I don't much care. I can fight."</p><p> </p><p>With Lily waiting, Alice flipped the latches holding it closed and opened it, looking down at her two axes, freshly repaired and maintained. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she nodded down at them before looking over her shoulder at her one remaining teammate.</p><p>“When did you want to leave?”</p><p>“I’ll cancel our dinner plans with ABRN.”</p><p>“Shit, that soon?”</p><p>Lily nodded, swinging her legs over the bed to rise to her feet, and plodding over to stand next to Alice and look down at the girl’s weapons. A small teasing smile emerged on Lily’s face, and she looked over.</p><p>“You really do need a bit of an upgrade, I think.”</p><p>“Maybe. Maybe it’s time.” Alice shrugged, it being an old conversation between the two of them, before she reached down and grabbed one, lifting it out. “But they’ll do for today. I’ll...get changed, I guess. Let’s get the fuck out of here, then.”</p><p>“Agreed.” Lily nodded, turning and heading towards the door to go back to her own room to get ready, only to be stopped by Alice’s voice.</p><p> </p><p>“You dragged me out of my high, and now we’re heading out to get you yours.” Alice chuckled, glancing over at the other girl, who had the decency to flinch and look away. “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>It felt strange, putting her armour on again after a month of avoiding it. It had been in its case from the moment it had returned from being repaired, and she’d barely given it a glance due to the story each lingering dent and scratch told. But now, knowing she was returning to duty, even if just for the one day, made it easier to open the case and retrieve it, pulling it from its stand piece by piece and dressing.</p><p>By the time she was buckling her left vambrace, Alice was already dressed and waiting for her quietly, letting her take her time. The girl barely wore any padding at all, she could get dressed in under a minute, meanwhile Lily’s armour took a bit more time.</p><p>Finishing the straps, Lily closed her eyes as she let the familiar weight of her uniform settle into her mind, tuning to reflexes and instincts honed from training for combat since she was five years old. She wasn’t meant to patter around a mansion feeling sorry for herself. They’d both suffered a great loss, one that too many of their classmates had suffered, but she couldn’t let it stop her no matter how much her mind wanted to grind to a halt and hide underneath the covers of her bed until the world was a safer place.</p><p>But the world only ever got safer when there were people fighting for it.<br/>
And if there was anything she was good at, it was fighting.</p><p> </p><p>Sucking in a deep breath and sighing, she reached into the case and retrieved her second sword, her first one already being on her belt, and she slid it into its sheath on her back. With one sword on her hip and one on her back, it made the opening forms of her style unique and hard to predict, and it had always worked.</p><p>Well, almost always.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes as she clicked the display case closed, she felt a hand on her shoulder as Alice closed the distance, before Alice rested her forehead on her for a moment to find her own strength in her teammate. Nodding after a moment, Lily looked down at her friend and gave a grim smile.</p><p>“Let’s go.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>That was the end of any conversation for the trip, Troy not asking any questions at seeing them in their armour even though the desperate anxiety and concern was in his eyes. Pulling up to one of the central helipad centers, he grabbed Lily by the wrist as the girl went to get out, and after trying to think of something to say he simply raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it affectionately.</p><p>“Lily...”</p><p>“Trust me.” Lily said softly, giving him a small smile, and he released her hand to let her get out and close the door.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t surprise them that the medevac crews were more than happy to have official Huntsmen on duty and willing to fly out on missions, escorting the regular soldiers and medics who were tasked with going out into the wilds on patrols that were costing them far too many soldiers, numbers getting lower by the week. So despite the fact they were students, they were recognised for the medevac missions they’d taken in the past, and allowed out.</p><p>Barely ten minutes after arriving at the dispatch center they were hopping up into one of the elegant Mistralian airships, far more elegant and maneuverable than the Vale or Atlesian designs, even if not as fast. But it was agility that mattered over the forest, to be able to squeeze through trees upon landing if necessary.</p><p>Alice took her normal position, checking over the medical equipment and comparing it with her own supplies, checking the numerous pouches and tools she kept on her belt. She didn’t wear her Medic harness during combat runs, and she hadn’t worn it during the tournament, but any other time and the pouches were <em> always </em>in place. It was her job, and none of them could have denied she was good at it.</p><p>Even though Angel...had been better. But they were experts at different things.</p><p>It just meant that Alice would have to pick up her studies on the other areas now in order to pick up the new slack.</p><p>It was clear to Lily that the girl was thinking thoughts along those lines, whenever she glanced over her shoulder from her own place. Standing on the left side of the craft, she had a hand on the railing overhead as she kept a constant eye out over the forest for any signs of trouble or danger, her eyes focused and ceaseless in their constant scanning, looking for the smallest sign of trouble or disturbance or inconsistency. They were travelling towards the south-east borders of the official city regions, and it had Lily’s hand tightening on the railing knowing they were almost heading in the direction to where she and Alice had lost it all.</p><p>But there wasn’t any room for them to chicken out or go soft, they had a job to do.<br/>
And they had to prove to themselves that they were still good at it.</p><p> </p><p>The hours passed slowly, Alice eventually joining Lily in her scanning by standing on the other side of the ship, wrapping her tail around the railing overheard to keep her hands free to hold a pair of binoculars in both hands, constantly sweeping as another member of the crew did similar beside her. None of the five other members of the crew were Huntsmen, just traditional members of the military armed with barebones equipment, so having two Huntresses with them had them more at ease than usual, and they were able to focus better.</p><p>It was always that way, and Lily couldn’t help but feel good at just her presence helping soldiers feel safer and more disciplined.</p><p>There was very little trouble in south-eastern region, the larger settlements had all been destroyed years ago and left for the ghosts, but it had come up in the patrol rotation, so they were out there all the same, and Lily was as focused as she would be in one of the more populated districts, her eyes out for any signs of trouble. Even if there weren’t any rescues to perform, she had to keep her eye out for any signs of unusual Grimm movement for her to note down, and she narrowed her eyes as her eyes swept, drumming her fingers on the hand railing above.</p><p>Eventually, she snapped out of it when Alice gave a shout, the girl having seen something through her lenses in the distance.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ve got smoke! Three o’clock, middle-range.”</p><p> </p><p>Lily immediately switched sides to look out as well, even as the airship began to turn and head towards it, the pilot spotting the rising smoke easily once Alice had pointed out the faint whisps of it.</p><p>The two girls glanced at each other with concerned expressions when they recognised the settlement they were heading towards;</p><p> </p><p>Kuroyuri.</p><p> </p><p>One of Mistral’s great tragedies, and one of the ruins on the main route between the coastline and Haven. Lily gave Alice a nod, and the girl immediately began to prepare her gear, Lily straightening up her own armour just in case. A disturbance on the main route towards the city meant either refugees or bandits, and refugees needed all the help they could get these days.</p><p>Meanwhile Lily had to admit she wouldn’t mind if it was some bandits either, the thought giving her a shiver of adrenaline that sharpened all of her senses.</p><p>The pilot clicked on the alert beacon as they approached, the loud beeping designed to get the attention of anyone below and let them know that they were being approached. Alice’s sharp faunus eyes picked out the figures in the ruined central square of the town first, and she glanced over at Lily with a surprised and concerned look.</p><p>There were three figures in the square, clearly Huntsmen if their wide variety of gear and outfits were any indication, where a blonde boy was desperately waving attempting to get their attention. Lily leant back to shout out to the pilot to set them down, knowing the second ship following behind them would do the same, and both herself and Alice were leaping from the airship to land safely on the stones below before the ship had even properly settled.</p><p> </p><p>The two of them jogged over to the blonde boy, who both of them could swear looked vaguely familiar, who closed the distance with them at a run, skidding to a stop in front of them with such a desperate speed that Lily had to put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from tripping over entirely.</p><p>“Easy buddy, easy. First thing’s first, is anyone injured?”</p><p>“Over here, please!”</p><p>A girl’s voice called out from one of the nearby buildings, and Alice looked to see another young girl calling out to get her attention, dressed in black with a red cloak which was also familiar, but they had a job to do, and could ask questions later. With a nod from Lily, Alice immediately ran over, two of the other medics jogging their way over to join her.</p><p>“Who’s injured?”</p><p>“Please, it’s my uncle. He can’t walk…” The girl looked <em> exhausted </em>, and she was absolutely covered in dirt and ash from rough travelling. She pointed to behind the building, where a much older man was propped up against a charred beam, and Alice nodded before beckoning the other medics to follow.</p><p> </p><p>Skidding down to her knees next to the man, she began to check him over quickly. She could do her proper examination later, her first priority was checking to see if he could be moved. The bandage wrapped over what was clearly a savage chest wound was leaking from being applied poorly, and he was half-delirious from infection, but he was in good enough condition to be transported, so she ordered for a stretcher to be brought over.</p><p>The girl dropped to her knees next to Alice and began to speak at a loud ramble, and Alice cut her off by gently placing her hand on the girl’s shoulder as comforting and reassuring as possible, meeting her eyes.</p><p>“Easy, miss. We’ve got you now. We’re from Haven, and we’re going to get you kids out of here, okay?”</p><p>“I...I…” The girl stammered, closing her eyes and trying to take a deep breath to let it out slowly. “Please, we have to hurry.”</p><p>“We will. I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>As she gave the girl a warm smile, the other medics returned with a stretcher which the man was immediately lifted onto, and they began to transport him back to the airship, Alice still checking his vitals as they went, and the girl holding the man’s hand the entire way even as Lily beckoned the three other survivors to jump up onto the ship as well. With a nod from Alice to indicate that they had everyone, Lily jumped up onto the ship as well to speak to the pilot for them to immediately head home.</p><p>The man was lifted onto the ship slowly, before being set down in the middle for Alice to get to work properly as the engines picked up and the ship lifted from the ground. The four standing survivors they’d picked up were exhausted almost to the point of collapse, two of them immediately sinking down with a slump, while the blonde boy remained standing with his hand on the railing as well.</p><p>“How did you find us out <em> here? </em>”</p><p>“We were on patrol and saw the smoke.” Lily gave him a comforting nod, even as she knew she had to keep facing out into the wilds with her eyes scanning. “No-one’s been out here for <em> years. </em>”</p><p>Alice leant down next to the man and grabbed her gear, speaking to the girl without looking up at her as she grabbed a delicate pair of scissors to cut her patient’s bandage away. “What happened? What can you tell me?”</p><p>“We...he got stung, by a faunus. He seemed fine for the rest of the day, but by the next morning...he was like this. But he keeps getting worse.” The girl gave an exhausted and emotional sniff, still holding the man’s hand in her own, and Alice let out a breath as she nodded, studying the deep and <em> viciously </em>infected wound.</p><p>“Faunus venom, that’d do it. But it’s something we can treat.” Alice gave the girl as confident a look as she could. “He’s going to be alright. I’m Alice, and I’m going to take care of him.”</p><p>“...Ruby. And, thank you. For finding us.”</p><p>“It’s our job, we’re going to help.” Giving the girl a smile, Alice went back to the wound, starting the process of doing all the basics she could to secure it until they could get him to the hospital and she could get to work properly.</p><p> </p><p>“...what if we don’t make it in time?...” The girl’s voice came out as a desperate and anxious whimper, but before Alice could open her mouth to reply, the blonde boy’s voice answered.</p><p>“Ruby…”</p><p> </p><p>The boy’s voice was filled with wonder, and Alice glanced out the door to see the city of Haven come into view. She couldn’t help a small smile from coming across her face. It was always heartwarming to see how people reacted to seeing her home for the first time. She knew that Haven was easily the most beautiful city in the world, but after living there her whole life the novelty of it wore off.</p><p>But then she’d hear the gasps of people seeing it for the first time, and she’d remember.</p><p>The girl gave a gasp as well, her eyes going wide as she looked at it, before she smiled in relief down at the man. “...we made it, uncle Qrow…”</p><p> </p><p>Alice watched with a soft smile, finishing her basic work and then sitting back on one knee for the rest of the direct trip back. None of the kids said anything else, each of them too <em> utterly </em>exhausted, and Lily and Alice would get a report out of them later, but for now the priority was to let them get their breath back, and to get the man ‘Qrow’ to the hospital for treatment.</p><p>The airship touched down, and an ambulance crew were already waiting, Lily having called ahead to let them know what was going on. Neither Alice or Lily were surprised when the four kids immediately jumped into the back of the ambulance as well, and frankly Alice was relieved she didn’t have to talk them into it, god knows they’d need to be checked over as well after a trip through the Mistralian wilds, likely all the way from the coast.</p><p>The trip through the streets was fast, everyone making way for the ambulance as it raced to Haven General Hospital, and as they got closer Alice pulled her scroll from her number and flicked to the right contact on her phone, before pressing call to try and reach her dad’s emergency number. The man picked up after only three rings.</p><p>
  <em>“Alice? Talk to me.”</em>
</p><p>Normally he would be more informal, she was his daughter after all, but if she was calling his emergency number it could only mean one thing;</p><p>Work.</p><p>“Hey dad, intake of five patients from a Mistral evac, four cases of fatigue and they haven’t been checked over, one case of scorpion faunus venom and a deep chest wound. Aura resistant.”</p><p>
  <em>“We’ll be ready.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The line went dead as her dad would immediately begin to hurry to get things set up for them before they arrived, and she wasn’t surprised that there were people waiting for them as the ambulance pulled in, the doors being hastily pulled open and Qrow transferred to a proper trolley to be raced through the halls for treatment. But Alice’s part in the man’s treatment was finished, her dad would take it from here.</p><p>As the girl hopped out to chase after the man, Alice grabbed her arm firmly to get her attention, and the girl looked to her with panicked eyes.</p><p>“Go with him, but the moment he’s in surgery you need to come to me to be checked. Sometimes you think you’re fine, but the Mistral wilderness can play tricks, and you’ve seen battle. Ask for Alice Heredateru, got it?”</p><p>“...right. I promise.” Ruby nodded obediently, and the moment Alice released her arm she seemed to vanish into rose petals, shooting after the man, and Alice raised her eyebrows at it as she went.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Lily was helping the other three teenagers down, and giving them similar instructions, making it <em> very </em>clear that they were coming with her and Alice to be checked over. They didn’t put up much of a fight after they were reassured that they would be given constant updates on the man’s condition, and Alice began to lead them through the corridors.</p><p>“I’m Alice, we’re just going to check you guys over. We’re going to need to debrief you as well, to find out <em> exactly </em>what happened.”</p><p>“I’m Jaune.” The blonde boy gave her a fatigued smile, and she quickly had to catch him as he almost slipped from not looking where he was going, the sheer level of exhaustion making him clumsy. She helped him back up straight, and he nodded at her in thanks. “And...got it. Lead the way?”</p><p>“That’s what I’m doing, friendo. Come on now.” She gave him a smirk, and he found it reassuring and friendly enough that he smiled.</p><p>Lily was walking next to the two others, the arm of the other boy slung over her shoulders to help him walk as she supported his weight, the other girl doing the same with his other arm.</p><p> </p><p>Alice and Lily didn’t have the heart to split them up into separate check-up rooms, so with a few words to one of the doctors that Alice had known for years during her training, the three teenagers were able to be roomed together in one of the smaller wards that was entirely empty, rarely used due to being dedicated purely to Huntsmen.</p><p>All three of them slumped into the beds immediately, and only Jaune got any sort of embarrassed as Alice stripped him of his armour to check him over, giving him a small grin and rolling her eyes good-naturedly as he blushed from her examination. Apart from some lingering scars, he was in seemingly perfect condition, and Alice could recognise the signs of a powerful aura from experience, considering…</p><p>Well. Given her experience with….</p><p> </p><p>Nevermind.</p><p> </p><p>She banished it from her mind as she informed him she’d be administering a mild sedative to help him sleep off the fatigue, and he was already too tired to nod as she set it up, before leaving him to drift off into a deep slumber.</p><p>Immediately power-walking her way to the other side of the room, she raised her eyebrows at how Lily had pushed the other two teens’ beds together in order for them to be next to each other, and Lily simply shrugged with a small grin.</p><p>“They asked.”</p><p>“Stop touching my stuff.” Alice nudged her in amusement as she walked past, and as her eyes flicked between the two exhausted teens she knew the boy had to be checked over first, purely from the basic signs of his exhaustion.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey there, I’m Alice.” She gave him a friendly smile as she began to check him over, guiding him to sit up so she could remove his green coat and fold it gently, placing it on the next bed for it to be washed.</p><p>“Lie Ren. Thank you, for helping us with such urgency and attentiveness.” The man gave a nod and managed a small exhausted smile of thanks, and she gave a smile.</p><p>“Of course. It’s my pleasure. Now, I need to check you over, so I hope the girl next to you doesn’t get jealous.” She joked, giving a friendly wink as she began to check him, the girl next to him managing a very tired objection.</p><p>“Hey! That’s not...whatever.” The girl’s eyes were already drifting closed, her head drooping to the side, and Alice smiled as Ren looked over at her affectionately and fondly.</p><p>“You guys must have travelled a long way. Beacon?”</p><p>“Yes ma’am, foot travel since the Vale island of Patch.”</p><p>“None of that ‘ma’am’ business, Lie. If you’re Beacon, I’m probably not much older than you are.” Alice gave a smile, patting him on the shoulder as she finished up. “Well, plenty of cuts and bruises, but nothing your aura can’t handle once it restores. You’re also going to have <em> quite </em>the adrenaline slump soon, so just like your friend Jaune we’re going to help you get to sleep, okay?”</p><p>“I understand...Alice. And, just Ren.” Ren clearly found it difficult to address a professional by their name, feeling it was too impolite, and Alice couldn’t help but grin. It was kind of cute. “Thank you again for your assistance. We will give a full report as soon as we can.”</p><p>“Sounds like a plan. But for now, nighty night.” Alice grinned, before setting up the right sedative and patting his leg as he immediately began to drift off.</p><p> </p><p>Slipping her way over to her final patient, who was already practically unconscious, she immediately got to work. The girl was <em> utterly gorgeous, </em>and Alice tilted her head and let out an impressed breath as she got to work, the girl stirring still slightly awake.</p><p>“Nora. Help. Sore ‘nd sleepy.”</p><p>“Hey Nora. Lemme just check you, and then I’ll knock you out, alright?”</p><p>“Hell...yeah. Sleepy.”</p><p>“If you’ve been sleeping rough since Vale, I do not blame you.” Alice raised her eyebrows in understanding, checking the girl over. Plenty of cuts and bruises, and a nasty gash down her right thigh.</p><p>Alice sighed as she prepared the sedative, and waited until Nora was comfortably unconscious before getting to work on delicately removing the splinters from the deep wound, clearly from colliding with some of the wooden ruins after her aura broke. It was delicate work, but she was well-trained, and five minutes later she was applying stitches and cleaning her up.</p><p>She’d definitely scar, and it would be a doozy, but her movement wouldn’t be impaired, and that was the main thing.</p><p> </p><p>Once all three teens were completely unconscious, Alice and Lily left the room quietly to stand just outside in the rather quiet corridor, the wing of the hospital dedicated to Huntsmen being rather unused in recent weeks due to a decrease in Huntsmen activity. Alice leaned against the wall and pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes tiredly with a throbbing in the side of her head. If she was honest with herself, she was still <em> battered </em>from her previous night.</p><p>“Shit, a Beacon team. They’ve come a <em> long </em>way.”</p><p>“How are they looking?” Lily frowned at the concern on her friend’s face, and crossed her arms. “They alright?”</p><p>“These three? They’ll be right as rain. That other girl <em> better </em>show up.”</p><p> </p><p>Almost on the exact moment, her scroll lit up with a number from the hospital, and she answered.</p><p>“This is Alice.”</p><p>
  <em> “Hey Alice, this is Myria, I’ve got a Ruby Rose asking where you are?” </em>
</p><p>“Right on time. Huntsman Ward, room eight.”</p><p>
  <em> “I’ll send her right away.” </em>
</p><p>“Thanks Myria, you’re a gem. Any updates from my dad?”</p><p>
  <em> “His patient is in stable condition and responding well to the antivenom.” </em>
</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>
  <em> “Not a problem, Alice. It’s great to have you back.” </em>
</p><p>Unsure how to reply, Alice simply ended the call and slid her scroll away, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Lily frowned as Alice seemed to practically deflate against the wall.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>“I will be. It’s just...strange, being back here.”</p><p>“You were back in doctor mode immediately.” Lily gave a small smile, shrugging when Alice raised her eyebrows. “It was...good, to see.”</p><p>Pausing for a moment to process it, Alice gave a warm smile and a shrug, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall tiredly to wait for the Ruby girl to show up, which should only take a couple of minutes.</p><p>“We did good.”</p><p>“Yes, we did.” Lily nodded in agreement, walking back and forth across the corridor in a lazy pace, kicking her foot out every time she spun in her turn. </p><p>“Do you recognise them?”</p><p>“I think so...I remember them from the tournament, at least.” Lily frowned as she paced back and forth, pondering over it and wracking her memory. “They showed up at the bar to congratulate team SKTC after they kicked our asses.”</p><p>“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they <em> kicked our asses. </em>” Alice grumbled, pouting slightly as Lily gave her a dry look and a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“I would. But anyway, that means they’re friends with SKTC. Good enough for me. They’re going to have quite the tale.”</p><p>“Why would they be heading <em> here? </em>” Frowning in thought as she looked down at the ground, Alice lost herself in her theorising, and Lily didn’t speak up to interrupt her.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, only a few minutes later, there was the sound of briskly walking footsteps turning the corner at the end of the corridor, and both Alice and Lily looked up as a very tired and shy Ruby Rose staggered her way towards them, a relieved smile breaking out on her face as she reached them.</p><p>“They said he’s going to be okay.”</p><p>“He will be. It’s my dad looking after him. He’s in <em> great </em>hands. I promise” Giving the girl a wide smile, Alice gestured for her to head inside the room, and Ruby seemed to deflate even further in relief when she saw the other three sleeping soundly.</p><p> </p><p>Despite Alice’s gesturing to one of the spare beds, the girl made sure to check on each of her friends first, swaying on her feet as she looked each of them over, before eventually making her way over to the bed and hopping up onto it.</p><p>“They’re going to be okay?”</p><p>“They’re going to be perfectly fine. Apart from a nasty cut on your friend Nora’s leg, there isn’t a single thing wrong with any of them. They’re just drained. Much like <em> you </em>are.” Alice gave Ruby a firm but friendly look, before gesturing to the cape. “Alright, your turn. Strip.”</p><p>“<em> What??? </em>” Ruby squeaked, her eyes going wide and her face immediately going a bright red, and Alice let out a laugh at how utterly adorable she was, covering her hand with her mouth for a moment, before rushing to reassure the girl.</p><p>“Just out of the cape, boots, and corset. That’s all. I don’t need a full show, honey.”</p><p>“I...it...you…” Stammering as her blush continued, Ruby covered her face embarrassed for a moment before shyly undoing her massive boots and unclipping her cloak, and finally shakily managing to undo her battle corset to remove it.</p><p> </p><p>Falling back onto the bed with a flop, Ruby didn’t protest or resist as Alice checked her over, the girl hissing in sympathy at a <em> deep </em>gash across her torso, that had already started to heal from her aura.</p><p>“Woah, what happened <em> here? </em>”</p><p>“Faunus that got my uncle...he was fast, <em> wicked </em>strong.” Fear laced every inch of Ruby’s voice at the memory, and Alice sighed in sympathy as she prepared to knock the girl out.</p><p>“I’ll fix that right up for you. You’re going to scar, but I can neaten it and make it as small as I can, okay?”</p><p>“...okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Within only a few moments of Alice administering the sedative, Ruby was out like a light, in such a deep sleep she wasn’t even snoring. Sighing, Alice got to work on reopening the wound just enough that she could re-stitch it must tidier and smaller than her body was healing it on its own. It was quick work, and right after she snipped the thread she slumped back, plopping down into the nearest chair and groaning in fatigue, putting her head in her hands.</p><p>Lily placed her hand on her shoulder comfortingly, rubbing it, as she looked down at her <em> utterly </em>drained teammate. “I’ll handle their report and such, you can get some rest. I’ll keep an eye on them.”</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>“I’ll wake you if anything important comes up. Promise.”</p><p>Groaning in acknowledgment, Alice shakily rose to her feet before stumbling her way over to the nearest spare bed and falling down onto it, deeply asleep before she even had the chance to remove her boots. Rolling her eyes and smiling affectionately, Lily unlaced her boots for her and straightened her out on the bed, before cupping the girl’s cheek affectionately as she slept.</p><p>“I missed the real you.”</p><p>Stepping back, Lily undid her sheaths from her back and belt, and slumped down into the same chair Alice had just vacated, resting her swords against the wall next to her, close by to where Alice had placed all the other teenagers’ weapons, which were a frankly rather impressive array of equipment. Lily particularly approved of the sword and shield.</p><p>Sword and shield combat was a fading skill, not many Huntsmen used shields anymore, the equipment having begun to fade out of style as firearms grew more advanced and ranged combat became the general preference.</p><p> </p><p>Once he woke up and was back to form, she might ask him for a spar to see what sort of style he used. But she wouldn’t be offended if he said no, the five of them (including the man, Qrow) had travelled a long way through exhausting terrain.</p><p> </p><p>Putting her feet up on the chair next, she entered a light doze, the sort of doze soldiers teach themselves how to do so they can get a bit of rest while still being completely aware of the sound of what’s happening around them, able to snap out of it instantly the moment a sound is out of place. Shuffling deeper into the chair, she hummed to herself quietly as she rested.<br/>
There was no way of knowing how much time passed, but eventually the sound of a trolley being slowly and gently wheeled down the corridor had her open one eye and stand, poking her head out into the corridor to see Alice’s father, Sebastian, and a nurse, wheeling a trolley carrying Qrow towards the ward. Lily put a finger to her lips in a request for quiet as they approached, and Sebastian gave a nod of understanding.</p><p>Wheeling Qrow in as quietly as they could, Lily helped the nurse transfer the freshly bandaged man to the one remaining bed as Sebastian made sure to properly set up the IV slowly treating him with the right antivenom, and antibiotics for the infection.</p><p>When they were done, the nurse took her leave after checking over the charts Alice had filled out for the four others, and she nodded in satisfaction, giving the sleeping Alice a warm and fond smile as she left the room, while Sebastian remained behind to speak with Lily in the corner of the room quietly.</p><p>Lily sighed, making sure to speak in a whisper. “How is he? The Rose girl is going to ask the moment she wakes up.”</p><p>“The hard part is over, it’s just up to the antibiotics now. He’s in for a long and hard recovery, the wound went deep and the venom prevented his aura from healing it.” Sebastian frowned, leaning against the wall as he thought. “I’m not sure how to feel about you two girls going out there again so soon, after...what happened.”</p><p>“It’s our job, sir. We didn’t want to keep...being scared.” Lily looked away towards the end. While she’d known Sebastian since she’d been teamed up with Alice, she didn’t know him particularly <em> well, </em>so she wasn’t sure how to respond to the concern in his eyes.</p><p>After a few moments of thought, Sebastian looked over at his sleeping daughter, still in her armour and medic uniform, and he sighed in resignation, a sign of almost <em> relief </em>flickering in his eyes for a moment.</p><p>“I understand. Just...look after each other. I barely got my little girl back home that day.”</p><p>“Yes sir. We will. You don’t mind if she keeps staying at my house?”</p><p>“It’s better than her being at our home alone all the time.” Sebastian nodded sadly, looking at his daughter. He wasn’t naive, he knew his failings. But while it broke his heart, his work was important. But...it <em> did </em>break his heart. “Just make sure you’re there for her. And that she’s there for you.”</p><p> </p><p>Lily nodded, and it seemed to satisfy the man, who straightened from the wall and quietly walked over to where his daughter was sleeping, and leant down to press a loving kiss to her forehead, running his hands through her hair for a moment. He whispered something to her that Lily couldn’t hear, and she looked away to give him privacy.</p><p>He left without another word, giving a final small smile to Lily as he did so, and he closed the door to the room behind him as he left, leaving just Lily to keep an eye on things. Unbothered, she sat back down in her chair and returned to her doze, letting the hours pass easily until <em> someone </em>in the room woke up. Alice woke first, and when she looked around to see Lily comfortably dozing and her patients still asleep, she simply shrugged and put in her earphones to listen to music and play on her scroll, Lily rolling her eyes at her fondly as she stood to go grab them both some lunch, returning half an hour later and tossing Alice a paper bag with a wrapped sandwich for her to munch on.</p><p>Eventually, an ungodly amount of time later, both Lily and Alice each finding the need to leave the room and stretch their legs in rotation, the Jaune boy woke first, his eyes opening groggily as he gave a groan from the soreness in his joints. Pulling out her earphones, Alice swung up from the bed she was lounging on and made her way over, giving him a smile and putting her hand on his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Jaune, how are you feeling?”</p><p>“Like hell...how long did I sleep?”</p><p>“Ten hours. You’re going to be okay. Ruby is here and she’s okay, and Qrow recovered from his surgery well and is resting on antibiotics, and he’s going to be just fine.” Alice answered all of his predictable questions before he had the chance to ask them, and he let out a sigh of relief as he slumped back down into the mattress and pillow.</p><p>“Good...that’s good.”</p><p>“You hungry?”</p><p>“Starving. Thirsty too.”</p><p>“I’ll grab you something. And not usual hospital food. Promise. Any preference? Pick anything, you’re in hospital, you deserve a treat.”</p><p> </p><p>Looking over to where Alice quickly had Jaune smiling and laughing, Lily gave a soft smile at the sight. Even when beaten down, Alice was great at her job, and she always had been. The girl was capable of reassuring anybody of anything, it made her bedside demeanor flawless, and...it helped dealing with everything and anything else as well.</p><p>But it required <em> her </em>being even slightly okay, first.</p><p>Turns out, the trick to helping her be slightly okay again was to put her back into her element.</p><p>Who could have guessed.</p><p> </p><p>One by one, each of the teenagers woke up, and were all soon talking among themselves with both Jaune and the Ruby girl having the energy and strength to get up and move other to Ren and Nora’s beds and sit on the edges of them. Alice easily had them relaxed and reassured, chatting as they vented the relief about being safe and okay. While the official debriefing would happen soon, she was still getting the details.</p><p>The group had travelled from the island of Patch, off the coast of Vale, to try and get to Haven because of the attack on Beacon, wanting to help just in case the danger went there as well. The trip had been hard, but it hadn’t gotten truly concerning until only a couple of days ago when they’d encountered the scorpion faunus, and Qrow had shown up to help, only to get injured. The trip from there had been hard, eventually arriving in Kuroyuri where they encountered the Nuckelavee, the destruction of which had given up the smoke which Alice had seen, and now here they all were.</p><p>Now it was just a matter of waiting for them to rest and recover, and they’d be able to discuss what to do next.</p><p> </p><p>It took a <em> shocking </em>amount of time until the four of them recognised who Alice and Lily were, and it had Alice giggling wildly in amusement when Ruby blurted it out.</p><p>“WAIT! Alice? Lillian?...you’re Team LAVA! You were in the tournament, you fought SKTC!”</p><p>Alice giggled and nodded, shooting her a wink. “You only just recognised us now? I’m hurt. We’d hoped we’d make more of an impression.”</p><p> </p><p>But, then came Ren inquiring as to where the other two members of their team were. Even though Lily went to speak up and give the answer so that Alice didn’t have to, Alice beat her to it, looking down at the sheets and explaining the basics of what had happened, refusing to go into any detail.</p><p>The four were silent, watching sadly and speechless as a few teardrops went down Alice’s cheeks just from talking about it and remembering it, before the Jaune boy slowly and shyly reached out to put his hand on her shoulder and speak to her. Team JNPR knew what it was like. They’d lost their shining star as well, with the loss of Pyrrha.</p><p>The conversation was quieter after that, more solemn</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, during her recounting of what happened to each of them in the aftermath of Beacon, Ruby dropped the bombshell;</p><p>Chrystal was alive.</p><p> </p><p>The wind was sucked out of Alice’s chest with a gasp, before a dry sob of relief went through her and she had to look away, Lily immediately rushing to pull her into her arms and hold her tightly as Alice began to sob, and she wasn’t even sure <em> why </em>she was so relieved about it that she was crying. She hadn’t even known Chrystal that well, they’d just been fresh friends.</p><p>But maybe it was the relief of finding out that...well...one thing <em> hadn’t </em>been lost.</p><p>It didn’t make up for the losses of Lucy and Angel.</p><p>Nothing could.</p><p>But it was something. And in times of war, each something is enough.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p><p> </p><p>Recovery went slowly, but one by one during the day the teenagers felt well enough to get out of bed properly and head out into the city, Lily happy to be their guide and do their <em> official </em>debriefing out in the fading sunlight of the evening, recording everything on her scroll as they recounted what had happened to them as formally and accurately as possible, without the more casual tone and wording of their conversation earlier.</p><p>Which apparently meant that Lie Ren did most of the talking.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually Ruby excused herself from the day, wanting to return to check on her uncle and write a letter to her sister, but she looked to the others before she stood from the cafe they were all sitting at.</p><p>“Wait, where are we going to be staying, anyway?”</p><p>“I’m sure there are plenty of taverns around here with rooms.” Jaune gave a helpless shrug, taking another bite of his burger. “We’re in Haven, not some small town.”</p><p> </p><p>Lily and Alice looked at each other with raised eyebrows, a silent conversation happening between the two of them quickly, before Lily turned to the others.</p><p>“Actually, I think I have a solution for you. If you’ve got nowhere to stay...well, my place isn’t exactly short on spare room or privacy.”</p><p>“Really? Are you sure? There <em> are </em>five of us…” Jaune blinked, before blinking again when Alice scoffed into her coffee with a smirk, and Lily glared at Alice for a moment before nodding at the others.</p><p>“I’ve got room. You guys have come a long way, and you came here to help protect our home. Let me help <em> you </em>guys, even if just for a couple of nights until Qrow recovers.”</p><p> </p><p>The four teens glanced at each other, having their own conversation conducted with their eyes, before Lie Ren looked into his own coffee with a curious hum.</p><p>“It <em> would </em>be preferable to have some privacy with other Huntsmen until we come up with a conclusive plan of action.”</p><p>“You’re a very intense guy, aren’t you…” Alice narrowed her eyes at him curiously and playfully, and Nora grinned in fondness even as she nodded for him.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Ruby and Jaune were still looking at each other. There were secrets that they knew that now had to be considered in their plans and conversation, and being able to conduct those conversations in complete privacy would <em> definitely </em>be for the best. Casual taverns didn’t provide that sort of security. And Ren was right, being close to other Huntresses was far more secure and trustworthy.</p><p>“Alright. I...we really appreciate that. If it’s no trouble.” Ruby gave Lily a shy smile, and relaxed slightly more when Lily gave a truly reassuring nod. “Where’s your place? So I can find it later...obviously.”</p><p>“Just text me when you’re done and I’ll send my driver to come pick you up. There’s a smaller townhouse on the grounds that my father lends out to business partners from Atlas or Vale whenever they visit, but no-one is exactly going to be visiting for a while.” Lily shrugged casually as she finished the final mouthful of her salad and pushed her bowl away, crossing her arms. “You’ll have total privacy. And even I’ve got to admit it’s pretty nice. But yeah, just message or call me and I’ll send my driver.”</p><p> </p><p>The four teens blinking at the <em> sheer </em> amount of implications in her words, mentioning an <em> estate </em> and a <em> spare house </em> and a <em> personal driver </em>. But as much as they all wanted to unpack everything, Ruby had other priorities, so she nodded in thanks before starting to head her way back towards the hospital, speed in her pace so she could check on her uncle, and she really hadn’t sent Yang a letter in a while.</p><p>Maybe mail from Haven itself might be a bit more reliable? She could only hope.</p><p> </p><p>The others watched her go into the distance, it seeming to signify the end of the meal, and Alice stood as well. “I should get back to the hospital too, I’ll hand in the report on the way, and you can escort these guys to your place?”</p><p>“Sounds good.” Lily grabbed her scroll and sent the report through to Alice, who waved her own scroll in confirmation that she’d received it.</p><p>Alice looked to the three others with a warm smile. “I’ll see you guys tonight. It’s good to meet you all, I’m glad we got you guys back here in one piece.”</p><p>“Thank you so much Alice, for...everything.” Jaune gave her a relieved and truly friendly smile. “Thank you.”</p><p>“It’s my pleasure. I’ll see you guys either later tonight, or tomorrow morning if you’re asleep again by the time I’m home. Later y’all.” Alice gave one last wave to them all, unable to stop her eyes from lingering on Nora, who blushed slightly at the polite attention as she waved Alice goodbye.</p><p>Noticing, Lily swallowed the scoff and eyeroll she wanted to give, but she looked to the others and stood. “Shall we go get you guys settled in?”</p><p>“Oh <em> gods </em>yes.” Nora groaned loudly, throwing her head back in exhaustion, before rising to her feet. “I still feel like I could sleep a thousand years.”</p><p> </p><p>Laughing, Lily grabbed her scroll and messaged Troy, and less than an hour later she was watching amused as the three members of team JNPR looked around the spare house on the Vale estate in awe. It was a beautiful building, with <em> plenty </em>of bedrooms, a massive living room, built-in kitchen, and...in typical Vale fashion, a training room downstairs with a gorgeous view of the sky above.</p><p>Nora was rushing from room to room excitedly, looking at everything, meanwhile Ren was politely following along as Lily pointed everything out and give him the gist. Jaune however, remained in the living room, slumped onto one of the couches and resting. The fatigue in his bones and joints was a unique agony, and the moment he could tell the tour was over he stumbled up to claim one of the bedrooms, pausing by Lily as he made his way upstairs.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you Lily, for...everything. You don’t have to do all of this. You <em> really </em>don’t.” He hesitated, before continuing with an apprehensive and apologetic expression. “You don’t have to get involved in any of this.”</p><p>“I’m a Huntress, Jaune. Just like you’re a Huntsman. Not only that, but I’m a Vale. It’s my sworn duty to protect Haven, no matter the threats or dangers. I was giving it my all even before you showed up.” Lily hesitated as well, her hands in her pockets as she finished with a sigh. “I lost two teammates in this fight. Including my best friend. And that pain I feel in my chest, the same one <em> you </em>feel...I’m not going to let it go to waste. If that makes sense.”</p><p>“...yeah. I get it.” Jaune looked down sadly, his own chest aching at the thought. “I get it.”</p><p>“Get some rest, Jaune. I’ll be in the main estate if you need anything. Probably in the gym. You should join me sometime, once you’re recovered.” Lily gave him a friendly smile and clasped him on the shoulder as she stepped past and out of his way, and he returned the smile for a moment before continuing up the stairs.</p><p>It left just Lily alone in the living room, listening to the sounds of RNJR claiming rooms upstairs and talking quietly in conversation she couldn’t hear, and she didn’t <em> want </em>to try and overhear anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she stepped outside and closed the front door behind her before slowly making her way down the path back towards the main estate, her hands still in her pockets. Reaching the gym, she unbuckled and removed her armour slowly, returning it to its display case along with her swords.</p><p>As she closed the case, she looked at her gear properly for the first time since returning from the fight with Kakra. And, for some reason, it didn’t hurt quite as much.</p><p>The fight was coming. The arrival of allies made it even more real than it had felt already.<br/>
But they wouldn’t be doing it alone anymore. RNJR had arrived, and Ruby had confirmed that SKTC were on their way to Haven as well after conducting other business out in Mistral.</p><p> </p><p>LAVA weren’t alone anymore. They had lost two members. Their friends. Their sisters.</p><p>Including their leader.</p><p>But...that didn’t mean they had to lose hope.</p><p> </p><p>Placing her hand gently on the display case of her armour, Lily closed her eyes gently and took a deep breath to hold for a few moments, before letting it out as a sigh. Tension that had been in her body for a month loosened, and in times to come she wouldn’t be able to explain exactly why.</p><p> </p><p>Help was coming. Help was already here.</p><p> </p><p>And where there’s help, there’s hope.</p><p> </p><p>+=+=+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>AND SO ENDS 'RED THREAD NOOSE'</p><p>Thank you SO much for reading to this point. OC stories don't get much attention, but I'm having a blast with this series anyway. And if you want to keep reading, I hope I shall see y'all in part three.</p><p>(On a side note, I always wondered where they were staying in Volume 5. It seemed far too nice and private to be a tavern. WELL now we have an answer!)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>